


While the Other Survives

by ansketil, ladyoflilacs



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Drama, Humor, M/M, Mad Voldemort, Romance, auror!Harry, just go with it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-20
Updated: 2017-04-09
Packaged: 2018-09-18 16:22:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 28,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9393485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ansketil/pseuds/ansketil, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyoflilacs/pseuds/ladyoflilacs
Summary: Harry Potter killed Lord Voldemort twenty years ago. Lord Voldemort killed Harry Potter twenty years ago. When two worlds collide, the last person they expected to meet may turn into an unexpected ally.





	1. Prologue

**Prologue**

The street was dark and dingy, impervious to the holiday cheer that had infected the rest of the town. There were no wreaths or lanterns here, no sparkling Christmas lights; there were, in fact, no street lamps on this road at all. The houses seemed to creep up on each other in the darkness, a claustrophobic collection of shabby roofs and boarded up windows. No one had bothered to shovel the snow that had fallen across the pavement; it had been allowed instead to grow murky and brown from the passage of wheels and feet. Somewhere nearby, a dog was crying softly.

Half-hidden in the shadows between houses stood a man in a tattered winter coat. A scrawny fellow with beady eyes, he was muttering quietly to himself, stealing furtive glances up and down the dark street. A wand was clutched tightly in his right hand. Every few moments he would reach up with his left to touch it, as if to remind himself that it was still there.

Continuing to mutter, the man dug into the pocket of his coat and produced a cigarette. He fumbled with it for a moment in the cold, whispering muffled spells from where it dangled between trembling lips. The end glowed bright as he inhaled, a prick of orange in the darkness. His eyes fell shut, visibly relaxing as the smoke curled and spread across the icy air. The whimpering dog began to bark. 

Suddenly, a jet of red light streaked across the way. The man's eyes flew open, cigarette flying from his fingers; his mouth had only just begun to form the counter-spell when the magic hit him square in the chest. He crumpled to the ground without a sound.

"Nice shot."

"Thanks."

"Quiet! There may still be more."

The Aurors seemed to materialize out of thin air. Seven in all, they approached the unconscious body sprawled across the sidewalk in silence, wands aloft. A sandy-haired young man pressed the burning cigarette into the snow with his boot and laughed. "Fool didn't even see us coming."

"Davis! What did I just say?" 

Davis seemed highly affronted. "I was only -"

His mouth fell shut when he saw the anger on his superior's face. "He didn't see us coming because we were _silent_. This is no time for games."

Davis bowed his head and muttered an apology. 

Harry Potter passed a stern glance across the rest of them, as if daring them to make any more unnecessary noise. "All right. Williamson - I want you to take Goldstein and form a perimeter. Davis, you will wait here and watch this gentleman. The rest of us will be entering the building through the front door. If anything should go wrong, I want you to call for backup immediately - is that understood?"

“Yes, sir.”

“Yes, sir.”

The front gate was rusted, and it swung open with a creaking groan. As Senior Auror, Harry led the way down the path, the rear guard obliterating their footprints in the dirty snow. A muttered _Lumos_ revealed an eviction notice which had been nailed to the door a year past. An obscene word had been sprayed in red across most of it, obscuring the name of the tenant.

Harry passed his wand over the door. A net of wards thrummed across its surface in response. He stepped aside; Auror Darby was expertly trained in this sort of magic. 

It was only a matter of minutes before they were inside. 

The air was clotted thick with dust and Dark magic, the hallway empty of furniture. Some of the floorboards, bare of carpet, seemed to be rotting through. By all appearances, no one else had set foot in this house for many months - but Harry’s ear caught the low murmur of voices from a closed door at the end of the hall, chanting softly...

The aurors moved silently down the hall, wands raised. Harry looked at each of the wizards and witches behind him in turn, and when they had each nodded, he faced the door and raised three fingers. _Three._ The chanting began to swell, gathering tempo. _Two._ A woman’s voice joined them in eerie dissonance, singing in a language Harry had never heard before.

_One._

The door crashed open with a _BANG_ , and the aurors flew inside. Harry glimpsed a circle of kneeling men and women, their faces hidden beneath dark cloaks, disturbingly reminiscent of Voldemort’s Death Eaters - and then he was dueling, deflecting a flurry of curses. A handful of them continued to chant, the woman’s warbling voice reaching a desperate pitch - but Harry would worry about that in a moment. Right now, his team was outnumbered three-to-one - their source had grossly underestimated the numbers involved. But Harry was not daunted. They had been trained for much worse.

Upon later reflection, Harry would see that it was such arrogance that had caused everything to go wrong.

He had managed to incapacitate two of them - tied up back-to-back, ropes bundling them tight together on the floor - and was now battling down a third, more powerful wizard with cocksure ease. He was, in fact, just beginning to enjoy himself when one of the other aurors shouted his name.

Harry whirled around just in time to see an object hurtling toward him. He raised his wand to halt its flight, but his magic simply bounced right off of it. It was a book, Harry noticed detachedly - its pages flying everywhere as it arced toward him. Time seemed to ripple and warp as it approached, slowing down and jerking the room around him with unthinkable magic. Some gut instinct urged him to _move away_ \- to jump, to dive, to do anything at all - but instead, Harry, stupidly, reached out and caught it.

Time shuddered to a stop. For one strange moment, everything was silent and still. 

The world burst apart in an explosion of blinding white light. Harry was sent spinning headlong down a narrowing white tunnel, faster than he had ever flown, rushing, spiraling forward - it was worse than Apparition, than the Cruciatus - he being stretched in a hundred different directions, pain beyond imagination -

And then he was spat out on a hard floor, spilling forward onto his knees. The cursed book flew out of his hands; it took all his effort to keep hold of his wand. Nausea briefly overwhelmed him, and Harry squeezed his eyes tightly shut, praying that he wouldn’t be sick. 

When it had passed, he opened his eyes and, slowly, rose to his feet.

It was dark: thick, impenetrable blackness without a single source of light to pierce it. Things whispered and rustled through damp, cloying heat. It reminded Harry of the greenhouse at Hogwarts where Professor Sprout had kept the tropical plants. Below the floor he could just make out the sound of water lapping against stone and, as Harry cautiously moved forward, he could feel the air around him heavy with steam.  

Echoes of potent spellwork itched against his skin - uncomfortably familiar. This was an evil place, stained by eerily familiar magic. Whispers shivered through the darkness, and Harry had the strongest feeling that he ought to understand the soft susurrus of murmurs, but the words passed through him like mist. He flinched when a frond brushed his arm, confirming his original theory that he was in some sort of hothouse garden.

The blue glow of wandlight revealed dark stone and dense foliage. Snakes of every possible variety curled sleepily around a tangled canopy that almost obscured the high, vaulted ceiling above. A multitude of beady eyes turned to stare at the intruder who had disturbed them, hissing and spitting, their long tongues tasting his scent on the warm air.

_"Welcome..."_ A voice called softly from behind him - a voice Harry would never forget - a voice he had thought dead and gone forever. High, silken, and impossibly cold, it was a voice that could only belong to one man.

Harry turned.

Lord Voldemort stood amongst the plants, his narrowed, livid eyes and gaunt, serpentine face fixed on Harry, the pallor of him gleaming in the light of Harry's wand. "I shall be most interested in learning how you bypassed Lord Voldemort's wards," the Dark Lord hissed, circling Harry, wand twirling in his left hand. "But first, I would know the name of the assassin who has so unwisely violated my sanctum. I do not believe we have been..." the lipless mouth smiled wickedly, "...introduced?" It was the same vile, mocking politeness Harry remembered from the graveyard in Little Hangleton. _Bow to death, Harry..._

It was impossible. Voldemort was twenty years dead, by Harry’s own hand. Yet here he stood,  Dark magic pulsing in his aura, red eyes as cruel and terrible as they’d been that fateful day in the Great Hall. There was no doubt in Harry’s mind that this person was truly Lord Voldemort... and there was also no doubt that the man standing before him was very much alive.

“Oh, I think we have.” He followed Voldemort’s movements step for step, heart pounding wildly in his chest; to let the Dark Lord out of his sight for even a moment, Harry knew, meant death. “Quite intimately, in fact." 

“Indeed?” Voldemort loomed over him, the crimson eyes narrowing even further, squinting against the bright glow of Harry’s wand. He tilted his head, looking the auror up and down. Harry fought not to shrink away. “There _is_ something familiar about you...” The Dark Lord mused thoughtfully, almost to himself, as he continued to slowly pace. Beneath his long, black robes, white, sharp-clawed feet were just visible, their talons clicking loudly against the marble floor.    

“As there should be,” said Harry, his voice remarkably steady. “I _did_ kill you, after all. Twenty years ago, if you’ve forgotten.”

There it was: the mad ripple of chilly, high-pitched laughter which had haunted Harry’s childhood dreams. Voldemort offered him a vicious smirk. “Do I appear dead to you, fool?” 

Voldemort’s snake-like profile, in fact, looked even less human than Harry remembered. Tom Riddle’s long, elegant fingers had warped into something rigidly reptilian; instead of nails, his hands and feet ended in thick, curved claws. A narrow, circlet of silver was wrapped around his hairless head - _a crown?_ Goblin-made, by the look of it. 

“You’ve certainly looked better,” Harry said coldly. “And considering the fact that I, you know, _watched you die..._ I’d say it’s not so unlikely.”

The crimson eyes widened. “You _dare_ mock your _sovereign-?”_  Voldemort levelled his wand at Harry’s head, reminding him of those final moments before Voldemort’s death: all wild bluster and furious outrage. Harry’s own holly wand swept up between them in response. _He’s mad,_ Harry thought, heart pounding. _He’s been locked up for twenty years in a tomb full of serpents, and now he thinks he’s some kind of snake king._

Voldemort’s wand briefly caught in Harry’s own wandlight then, and all of Harry’s panic was momentarily forgotten. For there were berries - _elderberries_ \- carved unmistakably into the wooden handle. There was only one wand in the world with such markings, and it had long ago been put to rest in its proper place, with its proper master. 

Harry was overcome by a sudden rush of anger. “How did you get that? That’s supposed to be back in Dumbledore’s tomb! I put it there myself!”

“I took it from the old fool’s corpse,” Voldemort spat at Harry, clearly sensing weakness. The Dark Lord ran a possessive talon down the length of the elderwood, but then seemed to lose himself in caressing the wand, his slit-pupilled gaze becoming glassy and distant with reminiscence. “I confess, at first, it was a great disappointment to me. I could not understand why it seemed no more powerful than my yew wand of old.” Voldemort continued to fondly twirl the Elder Wand with his grotesque, reptilian claws, his voice soft and silken - almost nostalgic. “But I was patient and, eventually, it yielded itself to Lord Voldemort, as he knew it must. All became clear after I killed the Malfoy boy and his traitorous parents... _Ah_ , to think - for all those years - Dumbledore could only ever duel me to an impasse with such power at his command. Extraordinary.”

Voldemort looked up at Harry. A smile curled his lipless mouth, but his red, gleaming eyes were blank of anything resembling happiness. “But we understand each other, the Deathstick and I. We both thrive on murder. Now tell me your name, my erstwhile intruder, and Lord Voldemort shall ignore your insolence and grant you a swift and painless death.” 

Harry laughed. He couldn’t help it. The Elder Wand had only one master when Voldemort had died, and it had not been Malfoy, Dumbledore, or least of all Lord Voldemort. “You think you’re going to kill me, Riddle?” Harry's voice was mocking. “You’ve never been able to kill me. I’m quite famous for it!”

_“You dare use that-”_ Then Voldemort stopped, caught in recognition, his livid gaze moving carefully across Harry’s changed features. The Dark Lord took an involuntary step back, and - for a moment -  shock flitted across his mask-like face. _“You!”_ The pronoun cut the air between them like a dagger. “ _What is this...?”_ Voldemort’s soft, disbelieving hiss was almost fearful. “You are _dead_. I cut off your head and fed your body to Nagini...” 

“You - what?” Harry took a step forward - suddenly encouraged by the snatch of fear he had caught in the crimson gaze. "No... _I_ killed _you -_ twenty years ago this May, during the Battle of Hogwarts! I buried you in the ground - I watched you die!"

The red eyes glowed like twin embers, their evil glitter seeming to stare into Harry’s soul. The dark room swam in front of his eyes. Probing fingers glided across his mind, taking inventory of Harry's mental walls - and then he was assaulted with nightmarish images; flashes of the bloodied head of a boy with jet-black hair being jammed onto a spike tore at the edges of his mind...

And Harry, who had passed Occlumency with flying colors during his training, felt his mental shields begin to slip beneath the weight of his repulsion and terror. His instructors could have never prepared him for this - for the sight of his own head, dripping with blood from the flapping skin of his severed neck, eyes wide and empty - _Ron lying lifeless and Hermione beside him, her bushy hair spread out against the rich carpet of Malfoy Manor, throat gushing blood, and Bellatrix Lestrange wiping clean a long, silver knife_ \- the same knife that had killed Dobby. It was too much. Harry stumbled backward, struggling frantically, but the walls of his mind were ripping open, splitting at the seams, pried apart by Lord Voldemort's impossibly sharp claws -

\- _And he was racing through the chaos of the Battle of Hogwarts and saw Voldemort fall; it seemed to take an age for the tall figure to collapse, as the Elder Wand flew high, and the Dark Lord finally hit the ground with a dull thud. No one closed the red eyes. He lay there, staring vacantly up at the ceiling of the Great Hall, all but forgotten in those first few moments of utter relief_ \-   

Voldemort shrieked, a wail of horrified rage, as he staggered back from Harry, losing what scant colour remained in the shadows of his pale face. He tore from Harry’s mind in a rush of pain, leaving Harry panting and clutching his head.

“ _I killed you_ ,” said Harry at last, breathless and triumphant. “Do you remember now? I killed you - so _how are you here?”_  

_“You are... are not lying...”_ Voldemort was shaking his head, still backing away. “I know... I _always know_... and yet _how...?_ ” He shrieked again, dark robes whirling. “You are a trick! An apparition sent to torment me!” 

“And you’re delusional!” Harry followed the Dark Lord’s retreat with measured steps and an outstretched wand. “I’m not an apparition. I’m an auror. And I was on a case when I ended up here after touching - _that.”_ He gestured with his free hand toward the cursed book which lay open upon the marble floor. Its pages were curiously blank in Harry’s wandlight. “It... must have been a Portkey.”

“Of course,” Voldemort said, regaining his composure and staring at Harry in wonder. _“You are right.”_

Harry blinked. “I am?”

Voldemort pointed a claw at him triumphantly. _“_ You _are_ a delusion!” 

" _I'm not a delusion!"_ Harry snapped, losing his patience. "I'm not an apparition, I'm not a trick! I'm alive, and you're supposed to be dead, and I haven't the faintest idea of what's going on right now!"

“Dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me?'' Voldemort whispered.

"Got a guilty conscience, do you?"

The Dark Lord drew himself up to his full, imposing height, glaring down at Harry disdainfully. “I have never felt guilt in all my life. It is a limp, _useless_ emotion invented by weaklings who cannot stomach their own actions.”

The Dark Lord seemed to have withdrawn into himself, searching for the answer. “You have come to torment me with visions of my death. Yet, you will not find me so far gone as to be cowed by such things. _Harry Potter is dead!_ Lord Voldemort has ruled this country for almost two decades!” 

But then his voice grew hesitant, husky, and almost inaudible, “Even if my... my faculties are not... what they were, Lord Voldemort is still _far_ more powerful than any wizard living... _I am immortal...!”_ Drawing strength from his words, Voldemort met Harry’s eyes again, declaiming wildly: “I shall rule _forever_ and no night time delusion will stop me! _Avaunt, figment!_ Cease this madness at once!”

Harry stared. He had been wracking his mind this entire time trying to figure out a way to safely incapacitate the Dark Lord so he could hand him over to the Dementors, once and for all… But he was starting to think that Voldemort would be better off in a bed at St. Mungo's than in Azkaban. 

"Er… all right. You've caught me." Harry lifted both hands, as if in defeat - though his wand was still gripped tightly in his right hand. "But if you'd like me to, um, avaunt - you'll have to show me the way out. And then I'll never bother you again, I swear it." Voldemort had said, after all, that he'd left this place to go and steal the Elder Wand from Dumbledore's grave. If Harry could only get out of here, perhaps he could summon the rest of his team and they could deal with Voldemort from there.

But the Dark Lord gazed at Harry as though he had not understood a word he’d said. He ghosted closer, closer - until the pale claw of his right hand cautiously - _experimentally_ \- touched Harry’s shoulder, almost as if Voldemort expected the gesture to go right through Harry’s thick cloak. 

Harry jerked back, as though he'd be scalded. The holly wand was suddenly between them again. Harry watched the Dark Lord carefully, but there was no trace of emotion in his expression. "Yes - er - nice and solid," Harry said, a little weakly. "You've got quite an imagination there."

The crimson eyes blinked down at him and then Voldemort looked away, towards the old book Harry had dropped, summoning it to his hand without even a flick of his wand. Harry could only watch, panic mounting, as Voldemort examined it methodically, taking care not to do further damage its already precarious leather spine. “This is quite clearly _not_ a Portkey, even a misenchanted one. And you are clearly _not_ a delusion, as you claim.” Voldemort’s voice was as level as the wand in his left hand. “Tell me, what were you doing with the remains of my old, school diary?”  

"I…" Harry looked from Voldemort to the diary and back again. For a long moment, there was no sound in the dark room but the hissing of the many snakes, watching them avidly from the shadows.

And then Harry's wand cut through the air with a flash of red light: _"Expelliarmus!"_

But Voldemort was quicker, deftly performing the counterspell and vanishing with a _crack_ to reappear behind Harry, a whirlwind of molten quicksilver streaming from his wand. Harry had just enough time to conjure a shield before it encased him - a sphere of shimmering liquid, its heat passing through Harry’s magic and prickling his skin; a slash of Harry’s wand and it erupted outward, showering the room in shining silver. 

Harry’s spell would have thrown a normal wizard off his feet, but Voldemort vanished again. The room was filled with the anguished hissing of serpents as their bower was brought crashing down by the force of the explosion. Voldemort’s magic arced like brilliant lightning in the glittering darkness and the rain of silver turned to lines of blue fire that streaked murderously back toward Harry.  

Swearing, Harry deflected one, two, three balls of blue fire before a whole cluster converged on him. Sweeping his wand to the ceiling, Harry froze them mid-trajectory, and then a blasting curse sent them zooming outward in all directions; a great hailstorm of ice.

It was then that Harry realised his error. He’d been so focused on defending himself from the fireballs that for, half a second, he’d forgotten about _Voldemort_. A jet of silver light was streaking fast through the darkness, and suddenly it was all Harry could see, and his wand arm was still raised toward the ceiling. Harry was blasted off his feet as it struck him in the ribs with the force of a truck. He hit the floor, gasping in pain, the air knocked out of his lungs by the sheer force of the Dark Lord’s spell, which bound him in a web of shimmering silver. 

In the absence of any light except that provided by the glittering net, all Harry could see were two red pinpricks, glowing faintly in the darkness. The air was thick with the sound of angry snakes. This was it. He had lost. “ _Now_ , Harry Potter, you shall-”

But Harry never did learn what Voldemort thought he would do, for at that moment, the world split open again with dazzling light, swallowing him. The last thing Harry saw was Lord Voldemort’s face contorting with fury - and then he was

( _propelled headfirst through blinding, blinding light, wind roaring in his ears, body twisted and seized by an invisible force as he fell and fell and fell and_ )

crashing through a door and stumbling into the room of a decaying Muggle house.

“Potter!” Ernest Darby cried, as Harry struggled with another bout of nausea on the splintered floorboards. “It’s Potter! I’ve found him!”


	2. Chapter One

Diamond bright light illuminated Voldemort’s waxen face. The Dark Lord’s livid eyes were fixed upon the agonies of a man trapped in a dazzling flume of circular time. Naked, the man’s age was in constant flux; his entire, helpless life was lived in a matter of moments, buffeted by shining gusts of relentless magic, at the end of which he shrunk once more to a tiny, mewling infant and the process began anew. The flailing child’s screams were muffled by the towering, crystal bell jar in which he was imprisoned, and the relentless ticking of the many clocks which covered the walls of the room. Voldemort found gazing at the doomed creature rather cathartic. Standing in this room, immortal, and thus immune to the ravages of time, soothed his frayed nerves. 

“My Lord?” A tentative voice hovered at his shoulder. 

“Have you done as I asked, Senior Unspeakable Turpin?” Voldemort asked without turning, as he continued to gaze at the changing figure within the bell jar. One of his Death Eaters had been caught in the jar many years ago, during their disastrous attempt to seize the prophecy concerning himself and Potter. When Voldemort had freed the others from Azkaban, he had put the wretched wizard out of his misery.

Lisa Turpin glanced at the crystal jar, ran a nervous hand through her dark hair, and then returned her attention to the Dark Lord. “We have had the object thoroughly tested, my Lord, and I believe we have some idea of the enchantments placed upon it.” Her voice was slightly squeaky.

The Dark Lord said nothing. The infant gasped out a tortured cry as it sped relentlessly toward adolescence. Voldemort remembered the pain of being reborn. He closed his eyes, recalling his emergence from the scalding heat of the cauldron, his first euphoric steps, and the sensation of silk against raw, new skin. 

“The book has been turned into some form of cross-dimensional beacon, similar to a Portkey, which-”  

“I am _aware_.” Voldemort’s cold, quiet voice was gravid with threat. The feral, crimson eyes opened as the Dark Lord finally turned to regard Unspeakable Turpin, who could not meet them and glanced again at the man in the bell jar - now middle-aged - though from the expression on her face it was clear she wished she had not. “You have said nothing but that which would be obvious to anyone the most basic acquaintance with Choramancy. _Look at me when I am speaking to you_.”

Turpin swallowed. She specialised in two of the most arcane and difficult types of magic, Chronomancy and Choramancy: the manipulation of time and space. “I... well... it’s tied to _you,_ my Lord. This old book,” she held up the battered diary, “was meant to summon you... _elsewhere_ , but I have no - _forgive me_ \- I have no explanation for why it sent another wizard _here_ in your stead...” 

Voldemort enjoyed visiting the Department of Mysteries. The Unspeakables were far too used to being paid extremely high wages to argue abstract theories to very little purpose. The Dark Lord, upon gaining control of the Ministry, had immediately ordered them to put their precious theories to the test and engage in more serious, practical experiments. In the past, this highly secretive department had reported directly to the Minister of Magic, who - fortunately for them -

almost never understood a word of their reports. Voldemort had removed the Department of Mysteries from the Minister’s purview. It was the only department personally overseen by the Dark Lord. 

Her words, obvious as they were, gave him the answer he was seeking. _How could he forget?_ “Long ago I devised a means by which that my Death Eaters might summon me in moments of great need. Whoever enchanted the book in your hand has based part of their ritual on the method I used to create the Dark Mark. It is an ancient magic and it calls only to blood. The answer to your question lies in the ritual I performed to gain this form. The blood of Harry Potter runs in my veins - it was this which resulted in his being pulled across.” 

Turpin stared up at Voldemort, open-mouthed. He smirked down at her as she marvelled at his brilliance. “But don’t you realise what this _means_ , my Lord?” So excited was Unspeakable Turpin that she forgot her fear, bouncing up and down on her heels excitedly. “This... _live_ Harry Potter is proof of Monkstanley’s Theory of Multiple Worlds! In our world you defeated Harry Potter, _whereas in the other-!_ ”

 _“Crucio!”_  

She collapsed to the floor - convulsing - dropping the diary, and shrieking under the agony of Voldemort’s curse. He stood over her, drawing out the spell without mercy, the glittering currents of the bell jar reflected in his cruel, slit-pupilled eyes. In his moment of realisation, he had forgotten that he had decided not to mention the name of wizard who had appeared with his broken Horcrux. Finally, he lifted the curse. “You will not speak of this,” he murmured softly.

“I - I - took an an Unbreakable Vow, m-my Lord, _please-!_ ” Her vow meant nothing when she was quite free to speak to others within her department.

The Dark Lord tilted his head thoughtfully as he delved into her mind - examining her loyalty -  and saw that Lisa Turpin imagined he was considering how valuable she was and what a waste her death would be. The arrogance of a Ravenclaw. Voldemort almost laughed at such misplaced hopes. “Perhaps it is your wish to join your colleague in studying applied Chronomancy?” A pale talon gestured ominously toward the old wizard writhing within bell jar.    

Then Voldemort froze.

 _In one world you defeated Harry Potter, whereas in the other world..._

_I did kill you, after all. Twenty years ago, if you’ve forgotten..._

Which had to mean - _impossible as it was_ \- that Harry Potter had known about his Horcruxes. Voldemort stared down at the once-beloved diary, now a worthless, broken husk, and a terrible fear gripped him. An enraged cry escaped his lips, more akin to the inchoate screams of demented animal than a human wail. _It could not be true_ \-  it was _impossible;_ no one had ever known... _surely the rest were safe_... 

A strange, crackling buzz filled the air as Voldemort’s fear began to interfere with the Chronomantic magic which governed the room. One of the clocks exploded, leaking purple smoke, and several began ticking backwards. Within the bell jar, the trapped wizard was suddenly flitting between random ages and the magic surrounding him flared erratically as Voldemort paced around the circular room.

Only two of his precious treasures had ever been destroyed, both by people ignorant of the true nature of their actions. The diary was thought to have been little but a darkly-enchanted book, bound with memories. And dear Nagini had been killed by the Weasley girl for being Lord Voldemort’s familiar and the creature who devoured what remained of Harry Potter. She met her death as a symbol, not a Horcrux. 

It still tortured him to think of her coils lifeless against the stone, cut in twain by the same weapon that had felled the Basilisk of Slytherin; his two familiars, his two most devoted, most loyal companions - the only creatures who had ever touched his heart - it had driven him beyond madness. One day, he would kill Ginevra Weasley, but not before he forced her to witness the deaths of all those she cared for.

A modicum of calm softened his fear. He was not this other Lord Voldemort who had allowed himself to be killed. Who knew what mistakes his counterpart had made? Perhaps he had abandoned caution and boasted of his greatest secret to one of his servants? Perhaps he had not hidden his connection to the Gaunts? It was absurd to think that another’s flaws also applied to him. It was impossible for Voldemort to guess at the number of differences between the world where he had failed and the world where he had won, it -

“Um, my Lord...?”

He turned, ready to kill whoever dared to interrupt his thoughts - but something in Senior Unspeakable Turpin’s face stopped him. The Unspeakable was sitting on the floor, one hand holding up the diary. _“Speak!”_ he spat furiously, the Killing Curse itching at his fingertips. 

“Um - well - er... you see, m-my Lord, this object... er... I thinkitcoulddestroytheworld. Er... potentially.”

_“What did you say?”_

“So - er - so if the main difference between our world and this other world is Your Lordship’s victory, pulling you fully into this other dimension could - assuming Monkstanley’s Theory of Multiple Worlds is correct - potentially destroy one or both of the dimensions. Or just confuse things a bit. Or a lot. I’m not sure. Er. Either way you should probably do something about it. Um, with respect, my Lord.”   

The crimson eyes widened in shock as Voldemort took in the full implication of Unspeakable Turpin’s words. He snatched up the book, just as magic flared within the bell jar, blindingly bright, and the diary began to glow - 

_\- And he was gone, speeding toward a wall of light that broke across his flesh in a scintillating roar of fractured pain that tore open in all directions - gaping wounds with no skin, no body from which to bleed - eight voices shrieking without sound, drowning out the light until he split open and screamed with them, past their broken cries, to be thrust into  -_

Voldemort blinked. He was _alive_ \- yes - and embodied. Trembling, he wrapped his arms about himself, squeezing as hard as he could. Beads of bruised light flickered across his vision. Taking a deep breath, the Dark Lord forced his shaky legs to stand. Still dizzy with nausea, he leaned against a bookcase to get his bearings, blearily taking in some of the titles and a photograph of a schoolboy with periwinkle blue hair and Hufflepuff robes. His young features, to Voldemort’s eye, bore a slight resemblance to the Black family.    

He was in a sitting room. Flowery curtains were pushed back from a wide window to allow the late morning light to spill into the room. Pictures of three young children - the next generation of Potters? - filled the walls, smiling and waving at him from their frames. The cosiness of the place was marred, however, by the many cardboard boxes which littered the room, most of them half-filled. A handsomely framed painting of Hogwarts Castle in summer lay atop the nearest one. On the wall beside the box was a matching square of bright, unfaded wallpaper and an empty nail. Voldemort moved to examine the painting. Beneath the calm surface of the lake, the movements of the giant squid were just discernible, sunning itself in the shallows. The Dark Lord would always remain fond of the beloved castle; his first kingdom. He bent closer to see if he could make out the artist’s signature.   

The sound of a muffled conversation floated through the doorway. Voldemort drew his wand, moving cautiously towards the open door, careful to keep the element of surprise. Potter's kitchen was small and unkempt, counters cluttered with unwashed dishes and any number of cookbooks. _How typical of him to live in such filth_. Potter himself was hunched over in the midst of it all, facing a crackling hearth.

 _I could kill him now,_ he could not resist the thought. But no, if Unspeakable Turpin was correct, then he ought to interfere with this realm as little as possible. 

"… a little later than expected," a woman was saying from the fireplace, her face obscured by Potter's crouching form. "Another hour, maybe? I'm not sure."

"Oh." Potter was turned toward the fireplace, but the disappointment in his voice was readily discerned. "I was - hoping Lily and I could go for a walk along Diagon Alley this afternoon. Maybe get some ice cream... stop by Fred and George's..." It was a man’s voice - hard to believe that it belonged to the boy he had killed.

"You knew I was taking her to my parents today," the woman interrupted him. "You're free to do whatever you'd like with her the rest of the weekend."

"And you know that I'm working this weekend!"

The woman sighed, "I’m sorry, I - we went over this."

"Ginny, please." A hint of desperation crept into Potter's voice. "I thought - maybe you might join us! We could get some dinner. There's a new Italian place, right near the Ministry - maybe we could see a film at the cinema, Lily's always loved -"

"No."

Potter deflated visibly, his shoulders sagging. "But -"

"No! The answer is no, Harry!" A pause, in which Potter said nothing. "We'll be home shortly. You're to be out of the house by five."

There was the telltale whoosh signaling the end of a firecall, and then Potter sank to the kitchen floor, burying his face in his hands.

The Dark Lord cleared his throat. “My apologies for interrupting at what is clearly a less than convenient time, but there are certain things you and I must discuss.” Voldemort kept his face expressionless, unwilling to engage with Potter’s obvious distress. The man’s family problems were not Voldemort’s concern. 

Potter made a choked noise, and he scrambled to his feet, nearly knocking over several of the dishes piled atop the counter as he did so. "What the - _what the hell?-!_ " He yanked his wand from the back of his trousers before he had even regained his balance. It was odd to see him as a man. Age had brought stray lines of silver to the black hair, adorned the chin with stubble, and deeply etched Potter’s familiar expression of stubborn defiance into a tanned, unfamiliar face; the glasses were square and thick-rimmed, the famous scar faded to white. 

There were several explanations the Dark Lord might give, none of them appealing. “Suffice it to say that my transition was not wholly voluntary.” Voldemort sniffed, “None the less, it shall serve.” 

"Transition?" Potter repeated, gaping. "What are you talking about? _How are you in my house?"_

“What were the fates of the Dark wizards whose ritual you interrupted? Based upon the incomplete enchantments on the diary - I _assume_ that you interrupted a ritual - yet I have learned that it is unwise to make assumptions where Harry Potter is concerned.”   

"So it _was_ a ritual!" The wariness in Potter's expression suddenly gave way to anger. "I tried to tell them that, but we didn't have enough to go off of! They were released just yesterday… insufficient evidence..." Potter scowled up at him again, still gripping his wand. "Why, were they acting under your orders?”

 _“Did I not say-?_ ” Lord Voldemort gave a weary sigh, very close to losing his temper once more. He would be over a hundred in a week or so. “Potter, are you familiar with Monkstanley’s Theory of Multiple Worlds?” 

Potter stared. "Er - should I be?"

“To put it simply, the theory dictates that when a choice is made, or an action takes place, another world comes into being where events took place differently. Thus, I am the Lord Voldemort who defeated you, and you are the Harry Potter who...” he grimaced in distaste, “...defeated me.”   

"So that ritual... was meant to bring our worlds together?" For a moment, Potter looked genuinely frightened. "Well, we don't want you here! We've been getting along perfectly fine without you, thanks - and I imagine things aren't so bad for you in your own world, if that crown is any indication."

“You fail to understand. The ritual was _not_ meant to bring the two realms together. But, more importantly, Lord Voldemort must ensure they never succeed. The consequences could shatter both dimensions.” He was exaggerating, of course. It was impossible to know what would really happen and, if any world would be destroyed by the spell, it would likely be his own. 

Shock flitted across Potter's face as he took this in, and then he seemed to reach a decision. "No - _you_ won't be doing anything but heading straight back to your own world where you belong. I am a trained auror. I will deal with these wizards, and their ritual, and make sure neither of us have to see each other ever again."

“I see.” Voldemort leered at him. “You are going to explain all of what I have told you to some Ministry official and he will then give you permission to detain these wizards, based on new evidence from Lord Voldemort? Ministry procedure has changed even more here than it has in my world.”

"Who said anything about going to a Ministry official?” Potter snapped. “Besides, I'd rather go through a hundred Ministry officials than work with _you._ "

“Potter, the only other person in my Britain who understands the magic involved is an Unspeakable named Turpin. Even if she also exists here, as an Unspeakable, she will be quite unable to assist you. Do not be foolish. You require an expert in Choramancy. I am the only one readily available to you.” He gave a tight, lipless smile. “Alternately, I am perfectly willing to seek out these wizards and kill them myself. It will merely be less efficient, and possibly give them time to destroy the world...” He gave a cold, airy sigh, “...But one must make do with the resources at one’s disposal.”

Potter scowled. “What are you even proposing, Riddle? That we work together?" He paused, brow furrowing. "My world, _my_ rules. You won't be killing anyone.”

Rage saturated his mind at his father’s wretched name. He w _ould not lose control. He would not._ Voldemort ground his teeth together, biting back his fury. _“I thought you made an exception for Dark wizards?”_ He spat the words out as if they were the foulest things in the universe and - for a second - the tenuous control which held back his temper was seen clearly in his twisted features. His next words came out in a rush, as he did not trust himself not to snap and kill the man in front of him before he finished speaking.

“Potter, I have put aside my not inconsiderable pride to ask for your assistance in defeating a group of wizards who are intent on resurrecting me by means of incredibly rare and volatile magic. Surely the novelty, at the very least, appeals to you?” 

"There is nothing _appealing_ about this situation - least of all the _novelty_ of dealing with someone I'd thought myself rid of once and for all _two decades ago!"_ Potter's voice was beginning to rise. "No - I'm sorry, but I think I'll do just fine on my own. I'm certain there's someone in this world who must know something about Choramancy, considering the fact that you haven't _killed everyone here already_! And I think I'd like to keep it that way."

“Very well,” the crimson eyes glared down at Potter and power sizzled through the air between them. Of course, he had no real need of the man’s help. It would merely have been useful to have access to a wizard from this world, who already possessed knowledge of those Voldemort would be hunting. That, and Potter would be the perfect person to manipulate into telling him how this other Voldemort had been killed. “I have no intention of standing here only to be insulted. Lord Voldemort shall undertake to seek out these wizards alone. Farewell, Harry Potter.” Again, it took every ounce of control he had not to leave Potter lying dead on the floor of his filthy kitchen. But the Dark Lord turned on his heel and strode out into the lounge. _5... 4... 3... 2... 1..._

"Wait." Potter's voice ground out from behind him, and Voldemort paused. "I... suppose we would find them more quickly together than we would separately. And it doesn't sound like we have much time to spare."

“Good,” Voldemort turned in an elegant sweep of black robes and thick, winter cloak - the effect was marred, however, by a sharp ripping noise as his taloned feet clawed up the carpet.  All the anger vanished under a tight veneer of cold politeness. “You have dealt with these wizards before - where do you suggest we start?”

"The house where they were doing the ritual," Potter answered immediately. "It's abandoned, in a Muggle neighborhood… we shouldn't have any trouble getting in. Perhaps you'll find something that we didn't pick up on, since you've got a better idea what we're looking for."

“Excellent,” Voldemort glided toward the front door, stopping when he realised Potter was not following him. _What was wrong with Potter now?_

"Er… you wanted to start straight away?" Potter threw an anxious glance over his shoulder at the fireplace. "I was sort of busy before you, er, popped in, y'know, and I'm afraid I've still got a bit more packing to do before I'm free to do anything else." 

Voldemort stared at him incredulously. “My apologies, Potter. I thought you were a wizard.” 

Potter scowled. "I can do household charms as well as anyone else! But most of this is just - it's very important to me. I'd rather not risk damaging it with - with hastiness." Throwing him a final distrusting glance, Potter stalked back into the sitting room, where the clatter and crashing of objects being shoved into boxes suggested that he was being anything but cautious.

 _This was the man who had defeated Lord Voldemort? And how could Potter possibly expect any wizard, upon seeing the state of that kitchen, to believe that either Potter or his wife knew their way around household charmwork?_ “The incantation is _Comporto.,”_ Voldemort hissed impatiently, “I often made use of it whilst travelling abroad _._ I assure you it is quite unlikely to damage-” 

_Thump - crash - thump - crashsmack - thump!_

“...any of your possessions.”

There was a brief pause in the commotion, and Potter stuck his rumpled head out of the doorway, glowering. "I know the incantation!" he said, looking rather flushed. "But I'm - I'm just about finished! Just - make yourself some tea or something?" He winced after the words had left his mouth, as though he hadn't meant to say so much. Voldemort stared at him. "Er - right. Just another minute. I'm almost done." His disappearance was followed by the slamming of drawers and cabinets.

Voldemort - whose last experience of waiting around in other people's houses had been many years ago, when he had been working for Mr. Burke - was unsure of what would be the proper response. Eventually, he settled on accepting Potter’s invitation. Once the kitchen was tidy, he found a dusty tea service, which looked like it had never been used, hiding behind some ugly, brightly coloured Quidditch mugs. Brewing the pot, all the while listening to Potter race about the house in a whirl of frenzied activity, gave Voldemort some much-needed time to think. He was just sitting down to have his tea - closing his eyes, slitted nostrils dilating as he inhaled the herbal aroma, and the warm porcelain most pleasant against his cold fingers - when Potter burst into the room backwards, panting.

He was guiding several overflowing cardboard boxes through the air behind him with his wand, rambling nervously as he went: “Incredible how much rubbish piles up over the years… would probably be better off just throwing most of it away. All right, just about -" Potter glanced back over his shoulder at Voldemort and nearly tripped over his feet, his boxes swerving dangerously midair, contents rattling, "… ready… you… er, you cleaned my kitchen?"

Voldemort did not answer at once, sipping his tea. After a moment of shocked silence, he realised that Potter was waiting for an explanation. “I am aware that performing magic in another wizard’s home is considered rude,” he said slowly, “but your kettle was filthy, and I cannot imagine how you can think whist hemmed in by all that clutter...”

Potter stared at him for a few seconds longer and then continued on his way across the kitchen. "Um… I suppose we don't do a lot of thinking while brewing the coffee." He tossed a handful of Floo powder in the hearth. The boxes were sent soaring through the roaring green fire. A beaten snitch rolled off the top of the last box, bouncing across the floor; Potter picked this up and pocketed it. 

“Potter, upon reflection, I believe it would be wise to lay down some ground rules for our joint enterprise. One, we shall not curse each other. Two, you will refer to me as Voldemort or my Lord and _nothing else_ and, in return, I shall endeavour to refrain from ending the lives of the various human cockroaches who inhabit this place - on the understanding that the latter are things which may cause both of us to break rule one. Agreed?” 

Potter considered this, frowning. "You're not to kill anyone, for _any_ reason. If you're feeling particularly homicidal, go on back to your own world and do whatever you like there. But Lord Voldemort's been dead for twenty years here, and he won't be killing anyone else." He paused, a grim expression on his face, and then held out his hand. "So long as you can swear to that, I agree."

Voldemort tilted his head thoughtfully. It was not his intention to disrupt this place, merely to safeguard his own kingdom. And when they found the wizards responsible, well, his use for Potter would be at an end - at which point, all agreements were void. He took another sip of tea, before setting the cup down on the table beside him. “Very well,” he murmured, standing and taking Potter’s hand in his. It took a few moments for Voldemort to discern how best to grasp the smaller hand in his overly large, curling talons. It seemed almost as warm as the teacup he had been holding, and slightly sticky against his cool skin. The Dark Lord expected Potter to wince in discomfort - his scar burning - but the auror betrayed no hint of pain at his touch.

Potter withdrew his hand only to grab Voldemort firmly by the arm instead. "Perhaps we ought to do Side-Along Apparition. It's probably not a good idea to be fooling around with spatial magic while you're in a separate world."

Voldemort was about to demur, when he realised that Potter was probably right. He _was_

still carrying the enchanted diary. It was always possible that he was being led into a trap, but the Dark Lord had faith in his ability to fight his way out of any ambush the likes of Potter might dream up. Besides, if this Potter was anything like the one he had killed, he would probably judge such a plan to be highly dishonorable. Voldemort nodded and, as the auror brought his wand down, it occurred to him that he had never travelled by Side-Along Apparition before. _Yet, how different could it be?_ Potter’s arm twisted away from him as Voldemort tried to snatch a hold of it with his other hand as -

_-The world compressed until there was nothing left but them; screaming, snatching at him with their wounded, fleshless fingers - and he cried out, but his mouth was stretched thin across a vast blackness, iron bands tightening around his body, until he could no longer -_

He let go of Potter and stumbled forward, almost falling over in the freezing, dirty snow - gasping down air that chilled his insides, shivering convulsively. _“I have decided,”_ he hissed, drawing his cloak tighter against the cold, _“to declare Side-Along Apparition illegal._ I had no idea there was a more uncomfortable method of travel than Floo Powder. Clearly, I was mistaken.”   

"Don't be dramatic," said Potter, who had the audacity to smirk. "Small discomfort next to our dimensions shattering, I'm sure. Besides, there's nowhere to Floo around here. We're in a Muggle neighborhood."

Indeed, Potter had brought them to a filthy alleyway, reeking of trash and urine. The street had an air of darkness about it, even in the broad daylight. The shouting voices of a man and woman arguing carried down the narrow street; squabbling Muggle children scampered like rodents past the mouth of the alley, wearing clothes that did not fit them. It reminded him of his childhood; the mantra that all the children at the orphanage were subjected to: _You should be grateful! At least you have somewhere to live - at least you ain’t out on the street like so many children._ The gravest threat Mrs Cole had to make, for that was what it was - a threat. One of the reasons he had begun to steal things from the others, to practise for what he assumed would soon be his fate, if the old bat did not manage to get him locked up in an asylum first. _I hate London._

"Right then… a Disillusionment Charm, perhaps?" Potter's voice, carefully polite, cut through his reminiscences. "Wouldn't want to, er, frighten the Muggles."

“Muggles such as these would be more likely to throw stones at something they cannot comprehend than fear it,” Voldemort said quietly. “Still, as you say, it would be unwise to attract attention-” And, in a second, he had cast upon himself a Disillusionment Charm that hid the Dark Lord from even his own eyes. Potter followed suit.

They crossed the street, invisible, and were nearly bowled over by three squealing young boys in the process. There was a slight shimmer in the air where Potter walked, and it was this that led Voldemort through an open gate up to a dilapidated house. None of the Muggles in the street noticed as the door swung open slowly and then closed once more, with seemingly no one there to pass through it.

A ripple of colour and Potter appeared in the dark, dusty hallway. "Nasty, uncomfortable things," he said, rubbing his arms. "Right, so here we are. Charming, isn't it?" 

It was, in fact, even filthier than Potter's own house. The wallpaper was grimy and peeling, and the naked floorboards were caked in dirt. Voldemort did not reply, appearing beside the auror and immediately walking down the hall into a large, empty room. Its windows were boarded up and the Dark Lord immediately sensed the potent magic which still lingered in the disgusting place. 

“Here,” he muttered to himself, bending down to trail a single claw along the dirt smudged by the feet of the troop of aurors who had disturbed the ritual. “And, _yes_...” he moved across the bare room, following the eldritch traces with the tip of the Elder Wand. “Enchanting my old diary was only the first step in their ritual; they required it as a locus, _it-_ ” Voldemort stared fixedly into the empty darkness, his crimson eyes narrowing. “Hmm... _how clever._ ”      

"What?" said Potter, sounding alarmed. "Slow down - a locus? What are you talking about?"

“Be quiet, Potter, and let me think.” Voldemort lowered himself to the floor, kneeling in the middle of the room and spreading his arms wide, as if feeling the air. “There were nine of them… this is a sacrificial circle… if these fools were not set on destroying my kingdom in the process, I would say they were almost worthy of becoming my servants. Of course, they would use dimensional magic to conceal… and – _yes_ – how _kind_ of them.” Voldemort pressed his palms flat against the boards and, for a moment, a large square was visible in the floor, shining brightly as though illuminated from below.

It took no time at all to banish the meagre protections preventing him from flipping open the trapdoor and –

There was a dark-haired teenager lying bound and gagged under the floorboards, staring up at them with desperate grey eyes. “Yes,” he hissed, “too cowardly to return for their sacrifice.” The boy looked as though he had not eaten in days _. They wished for me to enter this child’s body._ How strange that they should have gone to so much effort to find a boy with a face Voldemort despised.   

Potter swore loudly and fell to his knees. Voldemort watched silently as Potter gathered the boy in his arms and lifted him from his cramped prison, making short work of the crude bindings cutting into the child's arms and legs. The boy began to weep hoarsely when the gag was pulled from his mouth, burying his face in Potter's thighs; Potter's hand rubbed slow circles across the child's back.

When Potter looked up at him again, something angry and strange had darkened his eyes. "Perhaps I might look the other way if you were keen to spend some time alone with these bastards before we turn them in." 

 _What did you have in mind, Harry Potter? How would you prefer these wizards mutilated? You, who are too weak to act upon your own anger, what tortures would you ask of Lord Voldemort?_ But he said nothing, crouching beside Potter, his eyes on the mewling boy. He did not feel sorry for the child, exactly, but something in the not-quite-Tom-Riddle face made the Dark Lord uncomfortable.

“We shall not harm you,” he declared loftily, causing the boy to startle; behind the tired face, chaotic thoughts whirled. He gently touched the child’s gaunt cheek with the back of a pale hand, careful not to make any sudden movements, and said the words he would most want to hear, were he in the boy’s place: “We are here to punish the wizards who did this to you,” his cold voice soft, silken with reassurance.  

Voldemort’s benevolence, however, was lost on the child. He jerked away from the Dark Lord’s touch, trembling even more than he had been before, as his grey eyes grew huge with recognition. "Y-y-you're… y-you're…" He gaped up at Potter, raising a shaking finger in Voldemort’s direction. _"It's HIM! It's - it's Y-Y-You-Know-_ "

Potter hushed the boy, grasping his shoulders and turning him away from Voldemort. "Hey. He’s right, we're not going to hurt you. We're here to help."

"But - but they s-said they were bringing him b-b-back," the boy whispered hoarsely. "And he's - and th-that's -"

"We're here to _help_ you," Potter repeated calmly. "I’m a senior auror from the Ministry of Magic. And I wouldn’t have found you without his help. No one’s going to hurt you.”

The child’s eyes settled suddenly on Potter’s forehead, and his face lit up with surprise. “You’re Harry Potter!”

Potter grinned broadly. “That’s me!”

Voldemort rolled his eyes. 

Potter seemed not to notice. “Now, we’re going to get you home, but we’re going to need some help from you first, all right?”

The boy looked back and forth between them, cheeks still shining with tears. "What… what k-kind of help?"

"Only a few questions. Your name, to start."

The boy took a large, hitching breath. "I'm Michael. Michael B-Birch."

"All right, Michael. Just a few questions, and then we'll get you home." Potter looked up at the Dark Lord expectantly. 

Voldemort could not imagine why he had been surprised by the boy’s reaction. Perhaps it was because he still did not quite view this place as reality - which it most certainly was, however far removed from his own - so surreal was the experience. “Can you remember anything about those who took you?” And, as he asked, Voldemort stared into the child’s mind, prying it open as delicately as possible, siding easily into the surface thoughts that raced across young Michael Birch’s head. Shadowy figures, with masks in homage to his Death Eaters, dominated the boy’s recollection. _“You’ll see,”_ one of them whispered, black robes stained with nicotine, _“you’ll have the greatest honour of all of us…”_  

The memory shattered as the child looked away - turning fearfully towards Potter - unable to meet Voldemort’s eyes for any length of time. The Dark Lord stood. Potter was the one qualified to deal with distraught children - presumably that was part of auror training - but Voldemort had always detested adolescents, even when he was one. The boy would survive. He no longer had the patience to deal with such petty matters. “Attend to this matter, Potter,” he gestured imperiously towards Birch, “I shall investigate the house further.”

He swept from the room without a backward glance. Voldemort searched the hovel thoroughly, but - for all his skill - he could find no more than traces of simple magic and the spells of Potter’s aurors who had investigated this place before him. The Dark Lord kept looking, however, convinced he had missed some vital sign which would reveal where those wizards who had managed to escape the aurors had fled. They became prey in his manic, boiling thoughts - creatures to be hunted, caught, _devoured_...

 _Breathe..._ he halted, trying to calm himself, _breathe..._

It reminded him of his father’s neglected house, where he and Wormtail had stayed during that first summer of his return. At the time, he had taken pleasure in Tom Riddle decaying underground, while his once-proud inheritance fell to ruin. This dirty, Muggle house merely angered him, as did the child he had found under the floorboards. The peeling wallpaper, the filthy floor, the mad, masked wizards who, with cultish devotion, had sought magic so rare that no one had thought to forbid it; all whispered: _in this place, I am dead._ Dead like his father and all the wretched creatures he had killed. His body would not rot, he knew. It would lie as pale and smooth as it had been in life... 

Voldemort caught sight of a white hand at his side and curled it into a fist - harder and harder - until his palm was sticky with blood. He felt such distance from the world he ruled, once more alone in a mess of decay, and suddenly he could not tear Potter’s memory from his mind. Lord Voldemort - _himself_ \- crumpling to the floor of the Great Hall, feeble and shrunken, as the sun rose amongst fervent cheers. The vision struck the Dark Lord with a near physical force. As it had been when he had lost his powers; fleeing, formless through a night of joyous revelry and fireworks. _And he could not, would not, bear it -_

Yet the image remained, like a Boggart he could not dispel, and Voldemort shrieked as it maddened him, turning about the room, searching for their cheering faces to _kill_ \-  

Blank, grimy walls stared back at him - _dead, dead, dead, dead_ \- they whispered, reaching out toward him with their dirty, peeling fingers. _“Silence!”_ he cried, and a spear of green light burst - brilliant and searing - from the Elder Wand. Voldemort shrieked again, helpless against the laughter and cheers - _I am Lord Voldemort, I - you will be silent, filth! You, you -_ “YOU WILL BE SILENT!”

And, mercifully, they obeyed. Snow drifted downwards, mingling with dust and plaster. Silence. The grey sky was visible through the wounded ceiling. Voldemort’s chest rose and fell rapidly as he tried to catch his breath, unnaturally loud in his throat, and divide truth from phantom. 

He wished for Nagini, for her scales snug against his skin, her comforting weight in his mind, and her steadfast faith in her great and noble master. The Dark Lord hissed, a serpent’s keening, wrapping his arms about himself, and knew that she - long dead - could not hear him crying for her in the tongue they had shared. She would not want to see Lord Voldemort thus reduced. _Who is this hatchling who has taken the place of my master?_ The rebuke would have been justified. Voldemort held his breath, trying to bury the sickening fear of mortality coiling in his stomach, and turned in disgust from the sight of his delirium.

Harry Potter stood in the doorway, staring at him.    

"Well, er - I… took the boy back home... just got back here when I heard you, er…" Potter trailed off, looking very uncomfortable. "What’s happened to the roof?"

And there they were, those green eyes that had twice watched him lose everything; had seen him break and seen him fall - _see him die_ \- and how unbearably fitting that they should see him now - the eyes of a _nothing!_ For what was Potter but a creation of _chance?_ Unworthy in _every way_ of the gifts fortune had visited on such a mediocre wizard. _You are the dead one!_ The words stuck in his throat and he glared at Potter, unable to find an answer that would not turn into a scream of fury.  

Potter squinted up at the grey sky through the gaping hole in the ceiling, "Well, I - thought it was a little stuffy in here as well," 

 _What was Potter talking about?_ Snow brushed against Voldemort’s flat face and he laughed at such absurdity. It was a laugh as cold and blank as that same sky, fear poisoning whatever mirth it may have had; a sick, wheezing convulsion that left his teeth clenched in a humourless rictus. He could not meet Potter’s gaze.  

"Hey." The floorboards creaked with Potter's footsteps, and then the man was directly in front of him. The green eyes had softened with something he could not discern. "Would you like to, er, maybe come back to my flat? I've got tea. And… chocolate. Chocolate always makes me feel better when... um…" Potter shifted on his feet. "I've also got the Ministry files of the wizards involved in the ritual. We could - look over them together. If you'd like."

Voldemort’s eyes widened in surprise. He could not think of an adequate way to respond. _Chocolate._ What a strange man Potter had grown up to be. Tom had adored chocolate as a child, scarce as sugar had been. A rare treat. And, of course, what Potter suggested was sensible. They would find no more evidence here. “Very well,” the Dark Lord answered, as haughtily as he could while his mind was still spinning. He tried to say something constructive: “Did you obliviate the boy?”

"Of course I did." Potter looked slightly offended for a moment. "Not sure what you've been teaching _your_ aurors, but here you've got to be at least halfway competent to get the job. C'mon - we'll have to Apparate again, if you think you're up for it."

He found himself too exhausted to rise to the auror’s insolence. Voldemort put his hand on Potter’s shoulder, perhaps squeezing slightly harder than he ought, and braced himself for the -

_\- agony that tore through his mind as he was compacted to the merest spec, forced inward until he thought he would break as Potter’s magic dragged him onward, through the tunnel, into a light that burned the voices, and he was all of them crying out for it to end -_

He hissed in pain, trying to blink away the light that pinned the gaping voices, shaking his head in an effort to clear them from his mind - _too many voices, too much need_ \- he did not like to think what would happen should he attempt to Apparate in this world without Potter as an anchor. _The pieces of my soul, my treasures most important and precious..._ He reached out a hand, unseeing, trying to reach them, gather them close. But Voldemort’s claws slid through air and he hissed again, the spitting of a snake in terrible pain. 

"Oh, Merlin-!"

The voice came as though from a great distance, and then unexpected warmth - firm, solid fingers - gripped his arms through his cloak. "Hey - are you - are you all right?" The words stumbled over each other with Potter's panic. "It's okay - it's over. We're here now." 

“I can feel them... _they... my... mine... my._..” The words dissolved into another hiss of pain and Voldemort tried to stand, to pull away, but the world was trembling and he could not stand, could not stop the screams, _could not -_

"Hey." The fingers tightened around his shoulders, squeezing. "There's no one here. Just you and me - no one else. It's all right." _But it was not true, there were others, there were -_

 _“_ I can feel them, _they - YOU - you and that... and Dumbledore, you...”_ He curled up on himself, sinking to the floor, seeing himself die, crimson eyes open, and then threw the crying voices and the agony at Potter as hard as he could, wielding his pain like a weapon. 

But Potter did not recoil as the memories hit him. The grip on his arms constricted until it was almost painful, and, breathlessly, Potter cried, " _You're not dead!_ You're alive! And where you come from, I'm sure your Horcruxes are, too - most of them, anyway - but none of that is going to matter if we can't figure out how to stop these people before they destroy the world! _Both_ of our worlds!"

Voldemort ground his teeth, leaking venom that dribbled from the corners of his lipless mouth, ran down his chin, and burned the fabric of his black cloak. _Most of them?-!_ But... but Potter was right. He had to control this. _He must._ The Dark Lord sat very still - his eyes closed - lashing his thoughts tight, disciplining them as cruelly as he did the minds of others. _I will not be weak. I must not be weak._ Finally, he opened his eyes: clear, cold, crimson that glittered with sheer force of will - and realised his arms were still held tight in Potter’s grip. 

“That will do,” he said softly, shamed by his weakness, “I am... recovered.”

Potter released him at once. He had the grace to look embarrassed. "Er... that was… does that... happen often?" Potter's eyes widened immediately in horror. "Right, sorry, I - never mind. I'll just be, um, getting those files. Right. Why don't you just - sit here for a bit?"

Harry Potter’s small flat had very little in the way of furniture. A heap of boxes were piled up by the fireplace. It was a far cry from the comfort of the sunny home in which Voldemort had found him. The Dark Lord slowly got off the floor and sat on one of the rather Muggle stools that were arranged along a bench that marked the boundary between the kitchen and the sitting room. Unsurprisingly, he was far too tall for the high seat. “I do not understand,” he said eventually, elbows on the counter, when Potter came back into the room carrying several thick Ministry folders. “Why do you live in _this...?_ ” He refrained from completing the sentence, gesturing at the bare kitchen with a dismissive claw. 

"Says the man currently residing in a tropical cave." Potter sat himself on the stool beside the Dark Lord, slapping the folders down on the counter.

“It is _not_ a cave,” Voldemort replied, with as much dignity as was left to him, taking one of the folders from the bench. “I did not intend to be rude. It is merely that I expected something more fitting... are they truly so ungrateful to their saviour?”  

Potter snorted. "Where exactly are saviours expected to live, anyhow? I prefer doing things my own way. And I - well, I like it here. I do. It's - a temporary thing. For my work. And it's a nice flat... just big enough for one person." There was a note of false cheerfulness in his voice and he looked away too quickly, staring down at the open file before him.

Voldemort considered asking the obvious questions, about his wife, and about the girl Potter had named after his Muggle-born mother, but decided against it. What would be the point? “There were a great many wizards and witches vying for my attention - my favour - after I won the war. It was extremely tiresome. I prefer the solitude of my chosen home and my pets, where I am myself and not what others perceive me to be. I find your choice to be commendable.”  

"Well… er... thank you." A small smile crept across Potter’s face, as though he was not quite able to hold it back. “But wasn't that what you wanted all along? Everyone to kiss your robes and fawn over your brilliance and such?"

“I seek _power._ It had always pleased me, therefore, when others recognise Lord Voldemort to be their rightful ruler - but I am of a solitary disposition and dislike excesses of familiarity. It offers little amusement to a sorcerer such as I.” He treated Potter to his own sly almost-smile, a conspiratorial glint in his livid, serpentine gaze. “In truth, I made them kiss the hem of my robes simply to watch those haughty purebloods squirm. After I returned... well, it served as a reminder of the loyalties they had forsaken in my long absence...” 

"Perhaps they wouldn't have forsaken them if there hadn't been so much robe-kissing required?"

Voldemort’s smile grew sharp and cruel, but he said nothing as he opened one of the folders and began to peruse the photographs and biographies within. He pointed to one of the scowling faces. “This one... Wilkes... his uncle was in my service...” The Dark Lord turned to another photograph, “How strange...”

"Aubrey," Potter said at once, glancing at the picture with a sour expression. Aubrey stared back at them, eyes glittering madly; every few moments, he would smile to himself, as though indulging in some private joke. "He's been nothing but trouble ever since I joined the department. Starting riots, distributing all sorts of nasty, inflammatory literature... do you know him?"

“I _killed_ him several months ago, for fomenting treason.” Voldemort’s voice was full of cold surprise as his eyes narrowed with displeasure. “His multiple insolences left me in little doubt of his loyalties. Yet here he is amongst those attempting to resurrect Lord Voldemort. I confess myself astonished.”

Potter smirked at him. "What, did he refuse to kiss your robes?" He pulled the file in front of him, pointing to one of several cramped notes scrawled in the margins. "He was last arrested over the summer for allegedly plotting an attack on a Muggle hospital. I had - sources - that were feeding me information from his gatherings. So I led a raid on his house and found he'd somehow got his hands on the blueprints of the hospital itself. Along with his record - as you can see, the thing goes on for more than three pages - I thought it would have been enough. It _should_ have been enough. But the Wizengamot claimed there wasn't enough evidence to convict."

“Could it be they have become complacent in my absence?” Voldemort teased.

"They were complacent even when you were around," Potter said bitterly. "They've always preferred to shut their eyes to anything that can't be fixed with some paperwork and a signature. In any case," he gave Voldemort a suspicious frown, "you'd better not be planning on doing anything about it."

“I would not dream of it, Auror Potter. Do you know I had a look at my file when I overthrew the Ministry? They were forced to enchant it with an Undetectable Extension Charm. No, no, I prefer to kill swiftly, cleanly. Not drown my enemies in paperwork.”

Potter suddenly looked like he was having a hard time keeping himself from smiling. "I've been through your file a few times myself, _my Lord_. One count of public nudity, three counts of indecent behavior in a public place… you were apparently a very busy young man."

Blood rose in Voldemort’s gaunt, pale features - the high cheekbones darkening to mauve as though his near-translucent skin were bruised. “ _That_ was an ancient ritual to celebrate the end of winter. I was officiating. _I assure you_ I did not get involved in any of the mess which followed. I was asked to participate because I was the only wizard Abraxas knew who could cast the wandless magics necessary to act as the druid. And I was _not_ naked! I recall a particularly fine ram’s skeleton.” 

"Well, it didn't hide very much, according to the report," said Potter, sniggering. "Believe me - I took an entire course on Ministry penal law - they can't simply arrest you for wearing a promiscuous outfit. Er. Skeleton."

The bruising spread from his cheekbones, across his flattened profile and flaring, ophidian nostrils, until Voldemort was literally blue in the face. “It was _not_ promiscuous - _you_ - _I did research - consulted the ancient texts!_ It was the _proper garb_ for the wizard leading the rite!” 

"I think calling it _garb_ might be a bit generous," Potter said, in between bouts of laughter. "I never thought Ministry paperwork would leave anything to be desired - but, Merlin, they certainly left a lot out of _that_ report. The officials on the scene must have been distracted by your - skeleton, I'm sure…"

 _“ENOUGH!”_  The word burst from Voldemort in a spike of rage that shorted out the lights in Potter’s Muggle flat and left the both of them sitting in darkness. He looked at Potter in the dark, a grown auror suddenly stilled, shocked and wide-eyed as the child he had once been, and a small gasp of mirth escaped the Dark Lord’s lips, high and breathless, because it _was_ amusing, and he was sitting here with _Harry Potter_ talking about a ridiculous episode from his youth and _that_ was amusing too.

He put a clawed hand to his mouth, surprised by his own laughter. Looking back on it, he was sure that Abraxas Malfoy had only asked him to participle in the hopes that he would involve himself in the lechery that would have followed, had not all of them been arrested (apart from Olive Hornby, who had been spared on account of her being related to the Minister). “I was almost certainly the only one taking it seriously,” he confessed as the lights flickered back on, still chuckling. “I believe everyone else had intentions as promiscuous as you surmise.” 

"A group of teenagers, gallivanting naked in a moonlit field, performing blood magic. I'm sure it was a purely educational endeavour for everyone involved." The auror smiled at him - and it was not a mocking smile, but an invitation to share in a friendly joke - before he pushed himself from his stool. "But I'm sorry, you're right - I'm being cruel. Let me get you that tea I promised, and you can continue having a look at those papers."

“Without milk, if you would,” Voldemort replied, opening another folder and beginning to glance through the files therein. He looked up at Potter, who was busy with the kettle. “I believe there was chocolate mentioned as well.” _We used to be given it as a treat every Sunday after church. Just one piece each. How curious that I should remember that, of all things._

Potter shot him that strange smile again, as though he himself were surprised to find it on his face. "Well, I've got plenty of chocolate here, and, well... I'm the only one here to eat it. So you can have as much as you'd like." He produced several bars of candy from the box. "Here - it really does make you feel better. Try it."

The wrapper was difficult. It seemed unnecessary to use his magic and his clawed fingers were in no way suited to opening the synthetic, Muggle material the thing was wrapped in. The price he paid for the his last Horcrux: the glittering, beautiful sword of silver and rubies that had taken so much from him. A curved talon slit open the packaging as it might cut open a stomach and the chocolate fell out onto the bench. Voldemort snapped off two squares. It was a little sweet for his taste, but the texture was smooth and pleasant. “Why are you offering me such hospitality? You only agreed to help me for fear of the damage I would wreak in this place where I no longer exist.” He endeavoured to conceal the bitterness from his voice.

Potter was silent for a long moment, as though he did not have an answer. "Because there are two worlds depending on it,” he said at last. “Look, I didn't spend my childhood fighting you so that the world could be destroyed regardless. And if we're going to be working together… we - might as well be civil with each other." A pause, and something in Potter's voice shifted. "You're the first person to visit me here, you know. I've been living here for three weeks, and I haven't had anyone else. And it's - probably bad luck or something to be throwing curses at your first house-guest."

“You once told me you pitied me because I am incapable of forming those bonds which you and Dumbledore imagined to be the most precious things in the world. And yet, here I find you quite removed from such things...” He looked across at Potter, taking in the twenty years of life written across the man’s face, and broke off another piece of chocolate.

Potter recoiled as though Voldemort had backhanded him across the face. He drew his arms around himself - green eyes wide with shock - and then they shuttered. Potter had indeed mastered occlumency in his absence.  "It was not my decision," he said coldly, "and it's none of your business."

“That _is_ true.” Voldemort conceded calmly, finishing the chocolate bar. “But then, is it not unfair that my life always seems to be _your_ business? You know my most precious secret, and what do I know of you? Even now, I think you still - with not a little arrogance, I might add - see this as your responsibility alone.” The Dark Lord licked his fingers. “Perhaps _that_ is it - it would certainly explain your devotion to your work... have I ruined you for anyone else?” 

"I - you - my work's got _nothing to do with you!"_ Potter stammered, furious color rushing to his cheeks. "You were _always_ my responsibility, even when I was too young to even know who the hell you were! And don't talk to me about fair, because _that_ was never my decision, either."

“You forget, Potter, I _always_ know. Our youth. That is when we learn what the world is and our place within it. I could never _stand_ the faith they had in you – _such sickening faith in a child_ – but, you are right, _you_ had to bear it. You grew up with that weight on your shoulders and now you cannot bear its absence.” Voldemort hissed, leaning forward. “Some part of you, Harry Potter, is relieved by what I told you earlier today, not because you relish the thought of defeating this new evil, but because that weight is as necessary to you as breath. _Look at me_ , and tell me what I say is not true.”

Potter looked at him, but there was no hint of concession in those blazing green eyes. "You think you can simply… come into my house - my _world  -_ and tell me all the things I'm doing wrong with my life? You - know - _nothing._ " Potter stood perfectly still; his voice was soft with barely contained anger. "Get out." 

Voldemort stood, a supremely dignified sweep of black robes, every inch the majestic ruler he was. And, strangely, he was not angry, but curious as to why the auror had yet to realise what must surely be obvious to all those around him. “You mistake me, Potter. I am not one of your friends to make such judgements. I never claimed any of it was wrong. Morality was never - ah - my strong suit. You made _that_ assessment yourself. I am simply telling you what I see. You have been kind to me today and, though you may claim otherwise, I am not a wizard who forgets such things. Thank you. If that is your final word, then I will take my leave.”  

Something strange flashed across Potter's face, but the man turned away before Voldemort could identify it. "Goodbye," he said quietly to his empty grey wall. And this was so strange, the _defeat_ in Potter’s face, that Voldemort would not have it. _His_ Potter had never shown such _pathetic_ behaviour, even as he had cut the boy down. The child had been defiant to the last.

The Dark Lord reached out and touched the man’s shoulder, not out of concern, but out of some indefinable urge to return this man to his former self. “We have seen each other’s true faces,” Voldemort whispered. “It is no small thing. How I _hated_ you. You and your mother, who sent me into exile. I will never regain what I was before that Halloween night. It is gone with the serpents and the endless forest. And, after you were dead… neither you, nor Dumbledore, could hear my exultation...” The clawed fingers slid from shoulder to back, talons careful not to rip Potter’s cloak. _What was this sentiment?_

"It's - why she left me," said Potter at last. He did not look up as he spoke; but he also did not pull away. "The war's been over for nineteen years. But - she doesn't understand. The danger is still out there. It's still real. It never went away." Potter finally met his gaze then, and there was a desperation in his eyes, in the tense slope of his shoulders. "I'm going to prove it to her. She'll understand - they all will."

 _“They will not,”_ Lord Voldemort tightened his grip on the line of taut shoulder. “Because none of them understands what you and I understand. How _easy_ it is to kill. That the world is born of such strife and that war is the constant state of the universe. After Grindelwald’s defeat there were those who said it could never happen again - how I _laughed_ at them. I daresay that - _here_ \- there are those who say the same of me, and they would be equally wrong - as even my _Death Eaters_ were wrong. There were Dark Lords before me and there will be Dark Lords to follow. Would you really wish such truths upon those who cannot yet speak my name without fear?” 

"No... _you_ don't understand - there aren't going to _be_ any more Dark Lords. Not as long as there's someone left to fight them." Potter's eyes flashed. "But we need to keep _fighting!_ We can't just - wait around until the next one shows up on our doorstep. No matter how difficult it is for them to hear - they've got to wake up, all of them, before it's too late."

The livid eyes stared at Potter for a very long time, the long talons still holding the auror’s shoulder tight. Potter was, essentially, in agreement with his words – but even he could not quite swallow Voldemort’s meaning. “You cannot make people what they are not, Harry.” The Dark Lord said softly, consciously using Potter’s given name. “Well,” Voldemort’s lipless mouth curled into a cruel smirk, “not without _magic_ , in any case. Think on what you admitted earlier. The vast majority of witches and wizards preferred to shut their eyes even when in fear of a Dark Lord as great and powerful as I. How can you ever hope to achieve your ends whilst they see nothing to fear, sitting back and reflecting how _safe_ they are with famous Auror Potter to protect them? The same was said of Dumbledore, once, and how many heeded the Headmaster’s warnings? Your very existence is an excuse for others to do nothing.”

For a moment, it almost seemed as though Voldemort had gotten through to him. A brief expression of pain crossed Potter's face - and then the man yanked away. "I'm not having this conversation with you. I appreciate your - concern, or whatever it is you're trying to do, but I'm - I'm doing fine."

 _Concern?_ Lord Voldemort felt no concern for Potter. Such a thing was laughable. Perhaps Voldemort simply wished for the satisfaction of having broken Potter from beyond the grave and to hear the man admit to it. Certainly, he was attempting to sway the auror with his charm. There was power in the unexpected, in a show of kindness from one whom many considered to be an implacable force devoid of such niceties. Voldemort had known this for a long time. 

He opened his mouth to speak, only for the words to be snatched away - snapped back to into white pain - and Harry Potter and his small, Muggle kitchen were gone, as though they had never existed.  


	3. Chapter 3

The Auror department was alive with all the irresistible gaiety of the holiday season. Just inside the double doors, a robust, gray-haired woman was levitating a leafy garland to hang upon the walls. The Ministry memos fluttering between cubicles had been charmed red, green and golden, and the distant noises of carolers were audible down the corridor. There was noticeably less work being accomplished in the Auror office as Christmas drew nearer, and on this Friday in particular, with a soft snow falling outside and the end of the day creeping up on them, everyone seemed even more distracted than usual.

 

Senior Auror Harry Potter sat in the furthest cubicle from the entrance, oblivious to the bustle around him. His desk, normally quite tidy, was a mess of papers. He was bent furtively over large piece of parchment, scribbling with a quill; upon closer inspection, one could see that several names had been connected by lines. Hasty, arbitrary phrases had been scrawled between them, such as _class of '76_ and _Vane family (??)_. He was surrounded by stacks of folders overflowing with papers; several of them had been earmarked.

 

A small man with a ruddy complexion suddenly stuck his head over the top of the cubicle. Harry did not seem to notice him until he cleared his throat, "Senior Auror Potter?"

 

Harry looked up. "Oh - hello, Darby," he said, and returned to his work.

 

Darby cleared his throat again, clearly put off. "I was just wondering if you would like to purchase some peppermint toads...? We're raising money for the Winter Ball."

 

"Sure, yeah," said Harry distractedly, and he reached into his pocket. "Just one bag, thanks."

 

"That'll be three sickles," Darby said happily, and Harry, still looking intently down at the piece of parchment in front of him, handed him the money.

 

"Er, sir," Darby said after a moment, "you've given me three Galleons."

 

"Have I?" Harry looked up at last, frowning. "Er - sorry about that, here you are…"

 

Darby accepted the coins and then, to Harry's irritation, continued to stand there for no particular reason. Harry set down his quill and suppressed a sigh. "Is there anything else, Darby?"

 

"Ah - yeah." Darby, who had been surreptitiously trying to get a glimpse of what it was that Senior Auror Potter had been working on so intensely, straightened up. "It was just that Robards was asking for you. He's in a right mood today - I'd watch out."

 

"Excellent." Harry did sigh then. "Thanks, Darby. Best of luck with the fundraising." He folded his notes and tucked them into a bulging, three-ringed binder without a title. Clearly disappointed at not having extracted more information, Darby left him, and Harry headed across the office. He did not notice how conversation seemed to hush as he walked through the cubicles, preoccupied as he was with the information back on his desk.

 

Harry reached a door, upon which was mounted polished, golden plaque that read _Head Auror, Gawain Robards_. It was a few moments after his knock before there was any response. Robards liked to keep people waiting.

 

"Enter," came a gravelly voice at last, and Harry stepped inside.

 

Gawain Robards was a gnarled, gristly man with long, graying hair. A long scar ran from his left ear to his Adam's apple where he had suffered a blow from a werewolf during the Second War, which accounted for his harsh and throaty voice. His office was spartan and clinical, with very little in the way of decorations or furniture, and his desk was completely clean of anything but that to which he was immediately attending.

 

Harry had never gotten on very well with Robards, who had been appointed to the position of Head Auror by Rufus Scrimgeour - and who therefore had never been very fond of Harry, either.

 

"Good afternoon, Potter," said Robards in his rasping voice.

 

"Head Auror Robards," Harry said, and sat down. "How are you?"

 

"I imagine you already know why I've called you here," said Robards, ignoring him. This man never failed to make Harry feel like he was back in Snape's office again, awaiting judgment for some imagined wrongdoing. Feeling much the same defiance that he had then, Harry frowned at him.

 

"No, sir, can't say that I do."

 

Robards folded his leathery hands atop the desk and peered at him intently with his dark eyes. "Tell me, Potter, have you been feeling quite well?"

 

Whatever Harry had been expecting, it had not been that. He blinked. "Er - I've been feeling fine. Why?"

 

The Head Auror opened a drawer and pulled out a form. Harry recognized his own scrawling handwriting. "I've been head of this department for more than twenty years, Potter, and I've yet to come across as rubbish a report as this one here."

 

Harry's stomach went cold. "What was your issue with it, sir?"

 

"There were two other Aurors in that room with you. _Their_ reports," Robards pulled out two other identical forms, both quite a bit neater than his, "were in agreement about the details of your investigation on the seventh of December. Yours, however, gives a very different account of events."

 

Harry frowned, even as his mind was racing - what had he left out? What could he have possibly forgotten? He had filled out that report so carefully.

 

Robards cleared his throat and read from Harry's parchment: "Upon entering the room, Aurors Darby, Gumboil and Potter and were immediately engaged in a duel with nine suspects (Aubrey, Wilkes, Harper, Higgs, Montague, and three unknown persons). Auror Potter incapacitated Wilkes and Montague with an Incarcerous Jinx." Robards looked up. "Pay attention, Potter. Here's where things get interesting.

 

"'While Auror Potter was dueling one unknown suspect, he was blindsided by an unknown curse and lost consciousness. He regained consciousness approximately a quarter of an hour later and remained disoriented from the effects of the unknown curse for the rest of the afternoon.'" Robards lowered the paper and fixed Harry with a piercing look. "Tell me, Senior Auror Potter, why the other two Aurors accompanying you on this investigation both report that one of the suspects threw a strange book at you, and upon catching it, you disappeared - and yet _you_ found it fit to leave all this out?"

 

"I don't know, sir." Harry's face remained carefully blank. "Perhaps if we look at _my_ report again, we would know that I lost consciousness during that time, and that I was disoriented for the rest of the afternoon. It wasn't a curse that any of us recognized - it might've rendered me invisible, and that's why the others thought I'd vanished."

 

"Even so," Robards said, his voice becoming less gravelly, a telltale warning sign, "even if there _was_ no book, and you were simply invisible and unconscious - even so, why have you been studying those wizards' files like you're going to be bloody tested on them? You haven't made any progress today on Mrs. Egbert's reported larceny, Potter - instead you've been poring over a case that was closed four days ago!"

 

Harry's temper flared. "Because this is a great deal more important than a couple of stolen Nifflers! They're all known persons of interest! Aren't you at all interested in finding out what they were doing that day?"

 

"We have no evidence that they were doing anything illegal!" Robards said, voice rising. "They paid their fines for engaging in a duel with Ministry personnel, and that was all there was to it! So unless you know something that you aren't telling us - and let me tell you, Potter, I think that is _precisely_ what’s going on here - this case should be buried with all the other freak-show Ministry-hating oddballs that crawl out of the woodwork simply to give us a hard time!"

 

"That's because there's more to it than that!"

 

"And how do you know that?"

 

" _I just do!_ I've got a - a _hunch a_ bout it, all right?"

 

Robards, who had been leaning across his desk, sank back into his chair, scowling. "Unfortunately, Potter, your _hunches_ \- no matter how much they worked for you during the war - are no longer enough to keep up a Ministry investigation. Those days are long past."

 

Harry looked furiously away, simmering in his chair. If he didn't calm down, he might end up hexing his Head of Department.

 

"If that is all you've got to say for yourself, I'm putting you on temporary suspension," said Robards quietly. Harry did leap up then, outraged, but Robards raised a gnarled hand and silenced him. "It's for your own good, Potter. Frankly, I'm worried about you. I don't want you coming in this weekend, and I forbid you from looking any more at this nonsense with these troublemakers. Give me a Firecall Monday and we’ll see how you are. Take a break. Spend some time with your wife. I'm sure she's noticed how off the mark you've been, hasn't she?"

 

Harry swept through the department floor like a storm cloud. His co-workers did not bother to hide their gaping stares as he seized his jacket, knocking several papers off his desk in the process, and stalked out of the room. He nearly slammed the door as he left, a string of garland dropping from the wall from the force of it.

 

He didn't care. Let them think he was mad. They had called him mad before, hadn't they? And Harry had proved them all wrong then, too! He knew what he was doing - he was Harry Potter, Senior Auror -  and he didn't need their validation.

 

It was the reason he had withheld the truth of what had happened that afternoon in his report. If he had shown up after some mysterious curse babbling about Lord Voldemort living in a damp cave with hundreds of snakes, he would have found himself straight on his way to a bed at St. Mungo's. And he didn’t regret it. Voldemort had been - kind to him, that day in his flat. Voldemort had seemed genuinely interested in helping him find these bastards. Voldemort had believed him and given him a chance, which was a lot more than Harry could say for Gawain Robards or Ginny or any of the rest of them.

 

This was a good thing, Harry told himself as he rode down a flat with green and red memos flapping around his head. Perhaps he did need a bit of a break. And this would give him some time to investigate on his own, without having to worry about finding some batty old breeder’s stolen Nifflers. Harry rolled his shoulders, beginning to feel lighter already. So he couldn't come in to the Ministry tomorrow; that wouldn't keep him from continuing his investigation. There was still plenty he could do without being in the office, after all -

 

A strange, sudden buzzing in his veins was all the warning that he got, and then suddenly the lift disappeared, and Harry was -

 

( _shooting up, up, up at the speed of light, spinning uncontrollably, a blinding whirlwind of light and color_ )

 

\- doubled over and staring at a marble floor. Harry clutched at his head, trying to stop the dizziness, painfully aware of the shuffle of people on either side of him. He straightened up as soon as he was able, blinking as the floor seemed to level out again in a world that he knew must be -

 

But he was still in the Ministry. Harry frowned, confused, as his mind caught up with his eyes. He was standing in the middle of the great Atrium, surrounded by the hustle and bustle of the evening rush… but something wasn't right. There was none of the Yuletide cheer on the faces of these people. They walked with their eyes on the floor, speaking in murmured whispers to each other - if they were even speaking at all. Most of them were keeping to themselves, as though someone might reprimand them if they walked with too much bounce in their step, or went out of their way to greet anyone. The great Christmas tree Harry had watched them erect last week was gone, along with the magical snow and the carolers. It had all simply... disappeared.

 

And then Harry saw the war memorial. Or, at least, where the war memorial was _supposed_ to be. After Voldemort's defeat, the Ministry had replaced the terrible, hulking _Magic Is Might_ statue with a beautiful memorial fountain to those who had died fighting Lord Voldemort. But here, the statue remained, just as revolting as Harry had remembered it. The ugly, awful faces carved on the heads of the Muggles supporting the black stone throne each seemed to stare at Harry with accusing eyes - _you failed us. You didn't save us. You didn't help us._

 

Harry had no doubt about whose Ministry he was standing in.

 

Suddenly everything in the vast atrium stopped. Harry almost crashed into the wizard in front of him. The busy, scurrying bustle ceased and the terse, whispered conversations fell away to silence. The Ministry witches and wizards, in their ornate black and silver robes, were as still as the grim, enthroned statues that towered above them. Then everyone began to drop like flies. At first Harry thought it must be some terrible spell, his eyes desperately searching for its source, gripping his wand tight. But it wasn’t magic, he realised, which caused the crowded atrium to fall to their knees - their foreheads pressed against the polished, dark wood floor – but the tall wizard who had just stepped through the golden gates at the end of the hall.

 

Lord Voldemort glided through the prostrate crowd as though it did not exist, his silver crown and crimson eyes seeming to gleam with the same wicked purpose.

 

For a moment, Harry swayed on his feet, room tilting on its axis, as he was reminded of the last time he and Voldemort had stood in this atrium together. His heart constricted with grief anew for his godfather, and he was briefly overwhelmed with the terror he had felt so many years ago, only fifteen years old, those same scarlet eyes staring at him from beneath the dark cloak ( _Can't I, Potter?)._

 

And then Harry shook himself. _Voldemort was dead._ And Harry needed to get a grip on himself if he wanted him to stay that way.

 

"Excuse me… pardon me," Harry said, and stepped over arms and legs and ducked heads as he began to make his way through the sea of bended bodies. A few muffled gasps followed his progress from those who dared to look up at him. "'Scuse me, pardon - oh - er - sorry about that, ma'am. Just got some business with our, um, highness over there."

 

But just as he was getter close, a woman grabbed Harry’s robes, yanking him down. “Bow, _you idiot_ !” She hissed in his ear as he stumbled against her, “ _Do you have a death wish or something?”_ And he was suddenly face to face with Pansy Parkinson, her hard face looking up at him with fierce desperation. _Bow_ , she mouthed at him, trembling.

 

"Sorry, but I don't really think you, er, quite understand -"

 

She made a small sound that might have been protest or terror as Harry jerked himself from her grip. He didn't have time to figure out the difference - he was looking around the room frantically to see where Voldemort had gone, and saw, with no small amount of panic, that the Dark Lord had nearly reached the lifts. Unless Harry wanted to spend the remainder of his time in this dimension arguing with pigheaded Ministry officials (and he had certainly had his fill of _that_ for today, thanks), Harry needed to act fast.

 

"Oi! Voldemort!" he yelled, and a ripple of audible shock went through the people around him. Not many could contain their expressions of horror and fright, and one woman let out a little shriek. "I mean - um - my Lord -"

 

“ _You - stop!_ ” a deep voice bellowed across the atrium, “How _dare_ you disrespect the Dark Lord!” There were screams and someone else yelled out _“Incarcerous!”_ Harry tried to dive out of the way, but the thick ropes caught his ankle and he tripped – face slamming hard into the floor as his wand slipped from his fingers. Then he was jerked upside down by the same ankle, thrashing in the air, trying to make out Voldemort through the sea of black-robed figures. Around him, people were getting up off the floor as the busy atrium returned to normal.

 

 _“Hem hem!”_ a horribly familiar, girlish cough came from behind Harry. “I trust one of you is going to explain what is going on?” And as Harry revolved slowly in the air, he saw her: fatter – her neck had disappeared altogether - her pouchy, bulging eyes glassy with madness, and her curls faded to white. Her black robes were snug around her round figure and bore considerably more silver stitching than those of everyone else. Around her shoulders was a fluffy, matching cardigan. The black velvet bow perched in her hair was decorated with silver kittens. “I was under the impression,” Umbridge said with a small, saccharine giggle, “that I gave strict instructions on proper etiquette during those times when His Lordship honours us with his presence?”

 

“Uh… yes, Minister…” one of the wizards muttered, snatching up Harry’s wand.

 

“Warrington, the Dark Lord is our Master – our helmsman through the treacherous seas of impurity. I will not have His Lordship subjected to such displays. And, as for _you…”_ she said, turning to Harry and puffing up like the old toad she was, Her gloating smile was worse than any glare. “I am a merciful witch,” she began sweetly, and Harry realised in disbelief that she was aping Voldemort. “I see that you are ill, distressed – no doubt by your false beliefs. But don’t worry, we will do our _very best_ to cure you.”

 

The wizards and witches around them fell silent, backing away as a nasty, eager, excited look appeared on her face and Harry – who knew what was going to happen as she raised her wand – closed his eyes, bracing himself for the pain to come.

 

_“What is this, Delores?”_

 

Voldemort’s voice seemed to tip over Umbridge like a bucket of ice-cold water, making her shiver and almost drop her wand – eyes wide – as she spun round to offer him a simpering curtsy. Her cruel expression vanished into a coy, girlish smile and Harry was immediately reminded of the way he had seen Hepzibah Smith look at Tom Riddle in Dumbledore’s pensieve. “My Lord, it is an unimportant matter, I assure you,” she smiled up at Voldemort, “quite undeserving of your notice.” A blush appeared on her pale, flabby cheeks as she gazed at the gaunt Dark Lord.

 

But Voldemort paid Umbridge not the slightest attention, staring right over her head towards Harry, his crimson eyes narrowing. “This man is in my service,” he said eventually, in a slow, silken hiss. “Release him,” a corner of the lipless mouth curled upwards in amusement as Voldemort met Harry’s stare, “and give him back his wand.”

 

Harry came crashing to the floor at once in a heap of aching limbs. Ignoring the throb in his ankle where the magical ropes had cut into his flesh, Harry scrambled gracelessly to his feet and snatched his wand from Warrington, who was still gaping at Harry as though he'd grown another head.

 

"Your Minister was just lecturing me on _proper etiquette…_ after attacking and tying up an unsuspecting guest." The pain in his foot, Harry decided, was well worth the satisfaction of Umbridge's face turning slowly purple.

 

“In _your_ case, I have some sympathy with her actions. Come, we will discuss your insolence later. Good day, Delores.” Voldemort turned and swept off toward the gilded lifts, causing yet more bowing and scraping in his wake, as he waved a clawed hand for Harry to follow him. Hardly able to resist one last glower in Umbridge's direction, Harry hurried after him, forced to jog slightly to keep up with Voldemort's long strides. The ripple of bending bodies as they crossed to the lifts made the hairs across the back of Harry's neck rise. How could Voldemort stand this? Did they do this everywhere he went?

 

Finally, they were alone as the lift’s golden grille snapped shut behind Harry. Voldemort pressed a button and the lift began to descend. As soon as the atrium vanished from sight, Harry turned to stare at him, slightly out of breath and more than a little irritated. "I've got to say, I didn't think there was anyone I'd ever want to be Minister less than you - but you've managed to find someone. _Umbridge?_ Really?"

 

“Certainly. Dolores Umbridge is a consummate bureaucrat - vicious, small-minded, highly dislikable, and altogether lacking in imagination. I happen to think it was a rather inspired choice on my part.”

 

 _Her imagination didn't seem to be lacking as far as_ you _were concerned._ Harry was suddenly unable to stop thinking about the blush that had risen to her fleshy cheeks when she'd addressed the Dark Lord. Voldemort probably hadn't even noticed - especially considering how oblivious and horrified he had seemed during their discussion of his file the other day - but somehow, this didn't make Harry feel any better.

 

"Well, she's vile and cruel," Harry said instead. "Not to mention incompetent. She was useless as a Defense teacher - I can't imagine how she must be teaching manners. You ought to get rid of her before she attacks someone important."

 

“Indeed?” Voldemort seemed to be on the verge of laughter. “I find her to be most effective in her present position. Even _you_ , who ought to know better, have more hatred for this ridiculous witch than you do for Lord Voldemort. You have stumbled upon the very thing that makes her most useful.”

 

The lift shuddered to a stop. "Department of Mysteries," said a cool, female voice from above, and Harry, who had been about to tell Voldemort that he couldn't imagine Dolores Umbridge being useful in any situation outside of the provision of centaur fodder, was temporarily distracted from his outrage as the doors rattled open. The long, windowless hallway he endeavored to avoid whenever he was at work was unchanged by time or alternate dimension. It was ever the same - the same that had tormented him every night of his fifth year - the same that led to that hateful veil, which had taken Sirius Black's life.

 

"What are we doing here?" For all of his efforts to keep his voice steady, Harry still found it a little hoarse.

 

“ _I_ am here to discuss what progress has been made in studying the ritual you interrupted, based on what I managed to discover in your world.”

 

Voldemort glided confidently down the dark corridor, and Harry, with some reluctance, followed behind him. A dark-haired witch - who Harry vaguely recognised from school - was waiting for them through the black door, standing in the centre of the glossy, many doored, circular chamber. She bowed to Voldemort in a perfunctory fashion, her smile coldly professional. “I am pleased to see our experiment was successful, my Lord.” She then gave a slightly warmer smile to Harry. “Welcome to our world, Mr Potter. I am Senior Unspeakable Turpin. His Lordship has told me a great deal about you.”

 

"Has he?" Harry looked at Voldemort and decided that anything he had to say about Harry couldn't have been very nice. "Right, well, his Lordship has a bit of a - partial perspective when it comes to me, so I hope you'll take it with a grain of salt."

 

“Er... mostly we’ve been discussing what bearing your blood has on what we’re currently calling the chrorasanguimantic pull you and His Lordship share. He has been teaching me a great deal about sacrificial blood rituals. I understand you had the honour to be part of one in your youth?” She gave him an awkward, tense grin and Harry realised she was about as pleased to be standing here with Lord Voldemort as he was. Her eyes kept flicking back to the Dark Lord.

 

"Yeah, it was a real party." Harry did not allow himself to glare at the Dark Lord standing beside him, but instead returned Turpin's smile, caught in a sudden desire to make this poor woman feel at ease. Who knew what sort of agonies had been inflicted upon her, working so closely with the Dark Lord himself? "So how exactly does my blood tie into any of this?"

 

But it was the Dark Lord who answered. “You disturbed the ritual a great deal more than you realise, Potter. I can only assume that they used...” Voldemort paused, grinding his teeth together, livid eyes darkly furious, “ _similar methods_ to acquire my magical signature. As you know, I used your blood in creating this body, _the body they-_ ” Voldemort’s slitted pupils lost focus for a moment and he strode about the circular room like a caged tiger, clearly longing to strike at those beyond its walls. Finally, he stopped, his icy voice soft. “In any case, it was this connection which resulted in your being pulled across and it was this connection myself and Unspeakable Turpin used to reproduce the effect.”

 

"You pulled me here? Deliberately? Does that mean - you've got it under control?" Harry looked between Voldemort and Turpin, uncertain how he should feel about this development.

 

“We’re still testing what’s possible,” Turpin told him. “His Lordship came to the Ministry because we thought it might be easier to effect the transition close to where you were in your own dimension. But we’re really just piggybacking off the work done by the people on the other side.” The Unspeakable shook her head in admiration, “It’s an astonishing piece of magic-”

 

 _“I will not have these wizards destroy my realm!”_ Voldemort hissed possessively, pacing the room as Harry had once watched him pace the ancient floorboards of the Shrieking Shack.

 

"Nobody's realm is going to be destroyed," said Harry, who was not eager to see Voldemort blast off any more roofs - or heads. "There’s no need to panic. We're going to catch them before they get that far."

 

 _“You dare suggest that I-?”_ Voldemort’s slitted nostrils flared ominously as he rounded on Harry.

 

“What about looking for them here, my Lord?” Unspeakable Turpin said quickly, seemingly equally keen to forestall one of Voldemort’s murderous tantrums. “I mean... they haven’t gone to ground _here_ , have they? There might be similarities you could use to find them in Mr Potter’s dimension.”

 

"Brilliant idea!" said Harry. "Assuming you haven't - er - killed all of them already."

 

Voldemort’s livid eyes glared at Harry, but then he turned to regard Turpin, his reptilian face thoughtful. “It would seem you continue to prove most useful, Senior Unspeakable.”

 

Turpin bowed again, bending to kiss the hem of the Dark Lord’s robes. “I am always at your service, my Lord,” she whispered, and Harry’s stomach turned. He felt quite sorry for Unspeakable Turpin in that moment - clearly an intelligent, respectable witch, made to kneel and kiss robes that had been trailing along the ground all day long.

 

“Very well, Potter, it seems we have business on level two. A pleasure, as ever, Senior Unspeakable.”

 

Voldemort began to walk briskly back to the lifts, his flowing black robes blending into the darkness of the corridor. But Harry hung back. He found he could not look away from Turpin, who was climbing to her feet with a bowed head. There were suddenly many things he wanted to say to her. _I'm sorry I failed you_ . _I'm sorry he won. I'm sorry he makes you kiss his robes and hurts you when you displease him. I'm sure I did my best, but I'm sorry it wasn't good enough._

 

"Thank you," was all he said instead, voice soft and full of sadness for all the things he did not have the courage to tell her. And then he turned down the corridor and hurried to the lift, where Voldemort stood waiting for him.

 

“I trust that you do not harbour any delusions of influencing my realm. Here, Harry Potter is long dead.” Voldemort pressed the button with a curved claw and the grille slammed closed with a finite _snap_. The Dark Lord looked down at Harry, and the wizard was a far cry from the euphoric maniac who had shrieked with triumph when he thought he had killed Harry in the Forbidden Forest.

 

There was an infinite weariness in those monstrous features; two decades of an insane mind dashing itself to pieces against thin walls of skin and bone. His pale face was smooth as it had been on the night of his rebirth, yet its shadows held a hundred years of corrosive madness, cruelty and - Harry was surprised to glimpse - unhappiness. “My world, my rules.” Voldemort softly repeated Harry’s own words, his crimson eyes narrowing, the hiss of his cold voice lingering in the silence of the lift.

 

"I wouldn't dream of it," Harry echoed dryly, even though he had been doing just that. It was more difficult than he'd expected, stepping into this world where he had died and Lord Voldemort had come to reign over Britain. It wasn't his problem, he knew, not anymore - he had _killed_ Voldemort where he came from, and _his_ wizarding world had been free of war for twenty years. He had done everything he could for the people of his own world - and what could he possibly owe _this_ place, which had long ago submitted to Voldemort's rule? Where did his responsibilities end, if he decided to help this world as well? How many other alternate universes existed where Lord Voldemort now sat on a throne - and who was to say Harry shouldn't rescue the Dark Lord's helpless subjects in those places, too?

 

No, there was nothing to be done for it, Harry decided as the lift came to a halt four stories up ("Level two, Department of Magical Law Enforcement," said the cool, female voice). This world - this _Voldemort -_ could not be his responsibility too.

 

But for all of Harry's certainty on the matter, the knot in his stomach did not get any looser. Especially when Voldemort swept out of the lift and the handful of men and women gathered in the corridor sank at once into deep bows.

 

Voldemort glided through rooms that were strangely familiar to Harry: the activity, the desks, the notice-boards and piles of paperwork. Even some of the bowing aurors were the same. But instead of the purple and gold of Harry’s own robes, their uniforms were black and gold and each wore a badge decorated with the grim image of the Dark Mark. As they passed a closed door, he heard screams beyond. There was a dark, well-oiled militarism to the place that disturbed Harry immensely.

 

Voldemort eventually stopped in from of a closed door. The same cool, woman’s voice emanated from the doorway: _“Please state your name, business, and password.”_

 

“I am Lord Voldemort and I am here to examine the Cartograph.” And then Voldemort hissed something Harry couldn’t understand. _Parseltongue_ , Harry realized at once. He had spoken it for sixteen years - but now, when he tried instinctively to figure out what Voldemort was saying, he was met with the unnerving sensation of reaching through an empty hole where something important used to be.

 

“Thank you, my Lord,” said the woman.

 

The door swung open. The room beyond was an immensely detailed, panoramic map. It covered the walls, the floors, and the ceiling of the room. Harry realised he was walking across the coast of Cornwall. And, like the Marauder’s Map, it was covered with dots and beside those dots were names written in tidy copperplate. The entirety of Great Britain’s magical population seemed to be inked into its vast geography; Voldemort’s dominion and subjects laid out for the Dark Lord’s pleasure.

 

"Wow," Harry breathed, forgetting himself for a moment. He crouched down to observe the swarm of names moving through Plymouth, mouth slightly agape. It was one thing to record and track the few hundred people living in Hogwarts, but to monitor every single person in Britain was an impressive feat of magic indeed. "This is - incredible. We don't have anything like this where I come from."

 

“I would think not. The Cartograph would have been impossible without the work of the Registration Commission.”

 

The thought of Voldemort's Registration Commission ( _Mary Cattermole wailing as the Dementors hauled her in for interrogation - had Harry been alive to save her here?_ ) was enough to put a damper on Harry's delight. He straightened up, frowning. "So it only shows everyone who's registered? What if they're not? These _are_ criminals we're talking about, y’know."

 

“I am _aware_ ,” Voldemort replied coldly, sounding slightly put out. “But it is my hope that some of them will still be–” The Dark Lord stopped, his wand held up as though he were about to cast a spell. “What is _this…?”_ He trailed off in a narrow-eyed hiss, peering down at what looked like a small town in the north of England.

 

"What is it?" Harry bent down to get a better look. Voldemort seemed to be glaring down at the town of _Great Hangleton._ Upon closer inspection, however, Harry saw that the Dark Lord was in fact preoccupied with _Little Hangleton_ , smaller letters which marked off a tiny village within the greater township. Harry almost didn't remember the significance of this place for a moment, wracking his memory for the strange familiarity of the title - and then he saw the cluster of names which was the true subject of Voldemort's attention, and his eyes widened.

 

It was the same group of malcontents that was causing all the trouble to begin with. Harper, Wilkes, Higgs - all of them were there, grouped together in one place in what was clearly a meeting, even though they were in Voldemort's world and not Harry's. But that wasn't what was so shocking.

 

"Aubrey," Harry read one of the names aloud, frowning. He looked up at Voldemort. "Aubrey… didn't you say you killed him? I thought that he was dead here?"

 

“He _is!”_ Voldemort spat, circling the names as though he were just stopping himself from stepping on Aubrey’s name. The Elder Wand began to hiss emerald like a Muggle sparkler. “I killed him myself… to think they would use _my_ realm – my Muggle father’s house!” Vicious claws grabbed Harry’s shoulder and _pulled_ , and he was dragged out of the map room, the door gaping wide behind them – bouncing on its hinges, its spells broken – aurors scattering in the wake of Voldemort’s fury. The Elder Wand rent the air and -

 

\- _the world was swallowed by dense darkness, iron walls which pressed against him from all sides, squeezing him tighter and tighter until he was sure he would never breathe again, Lord Voldemort's magic compressing him into_ -

 

he stumbled gasping forward into tall grass, wet with snow. He would have preferred to stay that way for a few moments, doubled over until at least his head had stopped spinning - it had been too many years since he had since had the pleasure of Side-Along Apparition, and never before with so considerate a wizard as Lord Voldemort - but to leave the Dark Lord to his own devices in such a state would be almost certainly catastrophic. So Harry forced himself to straighten up, fumbling for his wand.

 

And froze.

 

The dark silhouette of a church was stark against a large, evergreen tree. Rows of neglected, crumbling gravestones sprawled out before it, the jagged teeth of a monster that had haunted his nightmares for more than two decades. But this was no nightmare - he was truly here, in the graveyard where Cedric Diggory had been killed, and Harry had done nothing to stop it. Here, where he had allowed Voldemort to take his blood and return from the dead, and Harry had done nothing but barely manage to escape by a hair's breadth.

 

"Merlin," Harry said hoarsely, clutching his wand, "you could warn a bloke”

 

Voldemort stood very still, his breath misting against the winter air. He took not the slightest notice of Harry as his livid eyes stared fixedly up at the fine old house on the hill overlooking the graveyard, the house - Harry knew - where Tom Riddle had murdered his father and grandparents. A dreamy, reptilian smile played on the lipless mouth. “Warn...?” he whispered distractedly. “Why would Lord Voldemort wish to warn them?” The forked tongue curled in anticipation. There was an eagerness in the Dark Lord that Harry remembered from a cold October night; an echo of another’s memories: purpose and power and _rightness_.

 

He shook off the sensation with a shudder. "Let's not forget that they'll be much more use to us _alive_ , yeah?" He did not at all like the way that Voldemort was staring at the manor, like a mountain cat stalking a herd of gazelles. "And I'll be a lot more use if you warn _me_ before doing anything - rash."

 

The feline, crimson eyes were suddenly fixed on Harry. _“Rash?”_ he breathed softly. “ _You,_ a foolish Gryffindor - _you_ , who know nothing of the magic we face, would see fit to lecture Lord Voldemort on the dangers of foolhardy action?” Some of the anger from the Ministry returned to the silken voice and Harry put his hand on his wand, worried the Dark Lord might curse him.

 

But Voldemort turned away, pacing up and down the graveyard. He sighed. “Fear not, Potter, the years have - above all - taught me caution. It is why I have brought us here, to the site of my rebirth, so that we may observe our enemies strengths and weaknesses before we draw our plans against them.”

 

Harry was quite tempted to point out the weaknesses of the enemy standing right in front of him - in particular, his apparently inexhaustible thirst for theatricality - but he bit his tongue. "Perhaps you find this all very relaxing," he said irritably, "but this place doesn't exactly bring me the same bundle of happy memories, does it? Couldn't we have found _another_ place to compare battle strategies?"

 

The serpentine face was expressionless. Voldemort shivered in the freezing wind. “You will find, Potter, that _life_ is generally comprised of things we would rather forget but must instead carve into our hearts so as to ensure that such defeats shall never be repeated. We can have no strategy until we have gauged their strength.”

 

"And we can't _gauge their strength_ until we're a little closer!" said Harry, struggling not to rise to the bait. "I _am_ an auror, in case you've forgotten. I know a little bit about these things."

 

“I realise that.” Voldemort replied calmly. “It was not my intention to belittle your experience. I am simply wary of apparating on the doorstep of a cabal who possess the power to render us dimensionally adrift at will. I am sure neither of us wishes to be subjected to the results of another experimental blood ritual.”

 

“I thought that was the highlight of your career," Harry muttered, but he turned his gaze from the Dark Lord to the distant manor on the hilltop. "All right - so there should be - eight of them? Nine?" He refrained, with great effort, from making any comments about rash actions and Voldemort yanking them away in a temper tantrum before Harry had had time to count for himself. Instead he squinted into the distance, searching with his magic for any movement outside the manor. "They had a lookout last time, so we'd better check the perimeter of the house before attempting entry."

 

“Very well,” Voldemort nodded solemnly. “In view of your experience and the fact that you have encountered these wizards before, perhaps you should take pointe and I shall... _cover_ you, is that the phrase you aurors use?” The flat, snake-like face was blank. It was impossible to tell if the man - if Harry could even call this twisted creature a man - was being serious or sarcastic.

 

Either way, Harry strongly doubted his ability to ever trust Voldemort to 'cover' him, but there was no use insulting the other wizard further during what might be a genuine attempt at civility. "Right. Information is our main objective right now, which means they'll be useless to us dead - so, er, let's try to keep them alive and talking, all right?"

 

“As you say,” Voldemort replied quietly, staring down at Harry for a moment, red eyes glinting, before his black robes and pale face rippled away into invisibility. Harry touched his own wand to the top of his head and followed suit.

 

They followed the winding, snow-covered path out of the graveyard and up the road. Behind him, Voldemort was as eerily silent as he was invisible; Harry found himself checking backwards several times to make sure the Dark Lord was still there, only to be unnerved by the quality of Voldemort's Disillusionment charm. Harry just barely stopped himself from making banal conversation to ensure the Dark Lord's presence behind him; by Merlin, he was Senior Auror Harry James Potter, and he was _not_ afraid - not of the Death Eaters waiting in the house ahead, and certainly not of the Dark Lord who was apparently covering his back on the most questionable mission of his professional life.

 

And if he was afraid, he certainly wasn't going to let Voldemort know.

 

But Voldemort did not betray his word, and they did not encounter any errant Death Eaters as they silently prowled the boundaries of the manor's property. In fact, the house was, by all appearances, abandoned - there were no lights in the windows, and although Harry could feel foreign magic thickening the air the nearer they drew, he could not sense any movement from inside. Nor did the recently fallen snow appear to have been disturbed or spelled clean by intruders. Feeling more and more unsettled, Harry let his hand ripple through the air for Voldemort's benefit - _this way_ \- and headed toward the entrance Harry knew was hidden in the back, overgrown with ivy.

 

And just as Harry was about to try his hand on the doorknob, having determined that there were no curses or wards on the dilapidated kitchen door, it curled away under his fingers, the old wood crumbling to dust at Harry’s feet with the barest trace of magic, making no more noise than the soft hiss of ash against snow. In its absence, daylight streaked into the abandoned kitchen beyond.

 

Harry turned, forgetting for a moment that he was invisible, and gave the Dark Lord behind him a look of impressed approval. But a sudden shift inside the room, which had proved empty at first glance, snapped Harry's attention back front.

 

Harry had met plenty of ghosts. He had befriended several, even. And he knew that, whatever these things were, shivering in the stale, dusty air of the deteriorating kitchen, ghosts they were not. But that was the only word his mind could conjure for it. He had encountered nothing like this before in all his career as a hunter of Dark wizards. Shadows - clearly shapes of people, but not defined enough to make out any distinguishing features - moved about the room, and Harry could catch snippets of muffled conversation, as though heard from underwater, or at the other end of a very long tunnel.

 

_"A child…. the Ministry… Dark Lord… the greatest of honors…."_

 

A swirl of fabric brushed against Harry’s leg and the dusty kitchen began to hum with non-verbal spellwork. The room rippled, guttering like a flame, and Voldemort slid back into Harry’s field of vision; one tall shadow amongst so many others. And Harry recognised repressed fear on the dark wizard’s serpentine features - a fear caused by anything Voldemort could not understand - could not kill. A fear he had seen when the ghosts of his parents and Cedric came out of the yew wand. A fear he had seen before Voldemort died.

 

"They aren't here." Harry closed his eyes for a moment and, with a rush of warmth, felt his charmwork dissipate. He followed Voldemort into the kitchen and felt the room spin slightly with thick, dizzying magic with each step. "Aubrey showed up here on the map, but if you say you killed him, he can't be here - at least, not in this world. But if they're the ones responsible - if they're truly and deliberately messing about with dimensional spellwork - then that means -"

 

But something was happening. Harry stopped talking abruptly as the floor seemed to slip and slide beneath his feet, the magic growing thicker, more potent. The voices around him had silenced, and Harry was beginning to recognize faces through the mist surrounding the shadows: there was Graham Montague, looking surly and confused, and Aubrey himself, looking as deranged as ever as he squinted at the place where Harry stood.

 

Wordlessly - and fighting a sudden and intense bout of nausea - Harry charmed himself invisible again.

 

" _Bloody house is haunted_ ," said a man - Wilkes - in the corner. _"The locals say a Muggle died here."_

 

 _"It was three Muggles,"_ put in Montague, _"some rich bastards."_

 

 _"No, I heard it was an old man,"_ Wilkes said.

 

There was an angry hiss from beside Harry. _“Potter!”_ Voldemort was beside him, but as the faces of the dark wizards grew clearer, so the pale-faced lord was obscured, as though Voldemort were the ghost. Even the red eyes were fading fast, leaving only a shade that lingered and hissed from the corner of Harry’s mind.

 

And then Harry saw what lay on the newly polished kitchen table.

 

Surrounded by candles and black rosettes, as though enshrined, was the corpse of Lord Voldemort. Perfectly preserved as though no time had passed since his death, the naked, skeletal body was covered by black shroud which reached Voldemort’s bony shoulders. The crimson eyes were closed - and it was Harry who had brushed the smooth eyelids over that vacant stare. The bald head rested upon a black pillow decorated with silver thread. The Dark Lord lay in state, surrounded by his self-professed followers who talked as though attending Voldemort’s wake.

 

 _"But we aren't here to talk about the dead, my friends,"_ said Aubrey, eyes flashing, and Harry was reminded of the booking photograph in Aubrey's file where he bared his yellow teeth in a mocking smile for the camera. _"Our Lord will soon be very much with us again once more."_

 

Then Aubrey leaned forward to kiss the shroud covering Voldemort's corpse, and Harry felt his stomach give a distressing lurch.

 

He stumbled backwards, the strange, trans-dimensional magic choking the air doing nothing to help his nausea. The faces of the Death Eaters swam in and out of focus, and for one alarming moment, Harry was in neither one world nor the other; his ears rushed with a sound like an oncoming train, and the kitchen spun and seethed with mist and voices; and to his horror, Harry found he could not distinguish between the Voldemort lying cold and still on the table and the Voldemort standing in front of him.

 

“Potter!” the Dark Lord cried again and this time lean white claws latched onto Harry’s arms and pulled him out of the swirling, ringing haze, out into the snow where Harry sucked in the fresh, icy air, trying desperately not to lose the contents of his stomach. And then Voldemort was shaking him with trembling fingers. “Where did you go, Potter? What happened? _What did you see?”_

 

Harry tried unsuccessfully to look unaffected by what he had just witnessed. How could he even begin to approach this topic with Lord Voldemort - who, at the mere idea of his own death, had leveled the ceiling of a small Muggle home right before Harry's eyes? Who had, in Harry's world, been killed by none other than Harry himself?

 

"I - think we ought to talk about this somewhere else," Harry said through a very dry mouth.

 

Crimson eyes narrowed. "You were affected by the curse they have laid here, most likely intended to deter intruders such as ourselves from further penetrating their secrets." One of Voldemort's skeletal hands patted Harry's shoulder awkwardly. "Since even Lord Voldemort was momentarily affected, I understand your reluctance to continue, but I am master of the ghosts of my father's house. This is cheap trickery, no more. The place is quite empty of real power, I assure you." He seemed to be trying to persuade himself as much as Harry. Voldemort could not stand the idea of anything being beyond his capacity to deal with, but Harry was surprised that Voldemort would stoop to such a blatant reconstruction of the facts to suit his ego.

 

In any case, Voldemort could not be allowed to learn what Harry had seen on that table – not if Harry wanted to keep those extremely foolish wizards alive for informational purposes, anyway, and certainly not in a place where Voldemort could possibly reach them. “It’s not a curse,” said Harry, and he did not need to feign the panic required to sound convincing. “There were wizards in there that don’t belong to this world, and if it’s true that the sort of magic they’re messing about with could shatter our dimensions – well, I don’t think it’s safe for us to be here.”

 

"I see," Voldemort treated Harry to another long,, blank look. "So, to be quite clear, you are saying that these individuals have choramantically weakened this house to such an extent that the phantasms we perceive on this side reflect what is occurring in your reality - thus accounting for your greater susceptibility to these shadows of alternate events?"

 

"I think that might be a bit - hasty of a conclusion..." Harry said slowly, both impressed and alarmed by how quickly Voldemort was piecing things together. Just how much had he seen? "After all, we know so little about the magic they're using... Any perception of another realm could be highly distorted…"

 

The livid eyes flashed and Voldemort's voice was low and dangerously soft: "Do _not_ patronise me, Harry Potter."

 

"Well pardon me for trying to be cautious," Harry glared, even as his heart climbed gradually up his throat. "We're only interfering with _world-shattering magic!"_

 

“You are an abominable liar.” Voldemort retorted stiffly. “Yet it was I who advised caution in the first place. Very well.” And he set off down the hill without a backward glance at Harry, a  tall, black-robed silhouette gliding across the snow. There was something uncharacteristically sad about the lonely figure.

 

Harry's exhale of relief was visible on the chilly air. Feeling much as though he had narrowly missed a well-aimed grenade, Harry followed the Dark Lord down the path. And if he hurried so that he might walk at Voldemort's side, it was only because Harry wanted to do whatever he could to forestall the impending explosion - not because he was disturbed in any way by the lingering vision of this same wizard lying dead beneath a black shroud, and certainly not because Voldemort looked like he might need the company.

 

They walked in tense silence, disturbed only by the sharp gusts of a north-easterly. At the base of the hill, on the narrow lane that led down into the village, Voldemort halted, his pale face pensive as his robes curled about in the wind. Eventually, he spoke, staring up at the grey horizon rather than at Harry: “As I hesitate to envisage what damage Harry Potter might wreck unsupervised in my kingdom, I offer you Lord Voldemort’s hospitality until you are called back to your own world. I do not possess any chocolate, but I can supply an excellent variety of aromatic teas.”

 

Although the idea of _Lord Voldemort's hospitality_ did not exactly sound appealing, he recognized the olive branch for what it was. "Great. I love tea," said Harry, who was not particularly fond of tea. "Thank you. Just - a little gentler this time, all right? I'm not as young as I used to be." He gripped the Dark Lord's arm firmly with both hands.

 

Voldemort’s - _Dumbledore’s!_ \- wand slashed downward and Harry was -

 

_\- propelled smoothly across the swirling vortex of apparition, shooting through the rush of chaos with the ease of sliding down a Muggle waterslide, to arrive -_

 

\- back in Voldemort’s tropical cave without his stomach so much as twinging. There was hardly even a sound to signal their arrival but the hisses of Voldemort’s pets.

 

"Merlin," Harry said for the second time that day, and he looked around the dark, stifling room, as though trying to figure out how they had gotten there. "You'll - have to show me how to do that sometime."

 

“It is simply a matter of focus. In order to properly utilise apparition in combat one must achieve a certain ease of transition. I apologise, I did not think to see to your comfort last time. I was preoccupied with events. Come.” And Voldemort led Harry through his hothouse - _snakery?_ \- and into a cosy sitting room with a large fireplace and soft-looking armchairs in dark green leather. Several of the larger snakes were warming themselves on the hearth rug.

 

Awkwardly, Harry arranged himself in one of the armchairs, taking care not to sit on any stray serpents as he did so. An uncomfortable silence followed, and Harry searched desperately for something kind to say about his host's decor. "Er - quite a lot of snakes you've got here."

 

“Yes,” Voldemort answered distractedly, conjuring a dark teapot that looked somewhat Japanese and a tray of with two small cups in the same lacquered ceramic as the pot. The long, pale digits began to carefully prepare the tea with the same elegant focus Voldemort usually reserved for duelling. “They keep me company. Often the weaker serpents are devoured by the larger ones, of course, but as they mate regularly, I do not mind if the greater majority of the eggs are eaten - I feed them all well,” he added, catching the look on Harry’s face, “but that is what happens when one keeps mixed species in a comparatively small habitat. They quite effectively control their own population.”

 

Harry tried not to gape - Ginny had always told him it was unbecoming - but perhaps she would have understood in this circumstance. "And that doesn't bother you? How exactly do they keep you company if they're all eating each other?"

 

“As I said, they breed often,” Voldemort sat down in the armchair opposite Harry, waiting for the tea to brew, and lazily hissed something in Parseltongue to one of the snakes curled in front of the fire. A large constrictor slowly uncurled and slithered across the Dark Lord’s lap. “I fail to see why I should interfere.” He stroked the animal’s head with a clawed hand, taking care not to scratch its scales with his sharply curved claws. “Sometimes I inhabit their minds,” he murmured, continuing to caress the serpent, “but they are such simple creatures compared to you and I.”  

 

"But don't you ever get… lonely?" Harry had been struggling with sleeping alone for only a few weeks now. He couldn't imagine denying himself human company in his own home for years on end. "I can't imagine they make for very good conversation."

 

“Loneliness is much like pain. If one learns to endure a certain amount from a young age it is little bother in the scheme of things. I have always been of a solitary disposition. I spend most of my time researching and experimenting - magic is an endless source of fascination to me, naturally.” Voldemort gently lifted the snake from his lap and began to pour them both a cup; the strong - but not unappetising - aroma ticked Harry’s nose. “I suppose I spent a great many years learning to live, if one could call it that,  in a forest with only animals for company... I have never considered my habits from an outside perspective. Tea?”

 

It was shockingly pleasant, if a little bizarre, to be having such easy and honest conversation with Lord Voldemort. At least when they had been sitting in Harry's kitchen, they had had a purpose perusing the Ministry files. But today Voldemort seemed simply to be being hospitable for hospitality's sake.

 

Harry shifted the cup in his hands, hot against his palms. "But you're king of the world, aren't you?" he asked with a little smile. "Surely you must be able to find someone whose company you enjoy. Why would you want to live with pain or loneliness if it could be helped?"

 

“I rule the magical population of Great Britain, not the world. You are mocking me, I think?”

 

"It's called a joke." Harry offered him another good-natured smile and shook his head. "See? You've clearly got to get out more."

 

“I will have you know that I travelled widely in my youth. I fail to see how excessive familiarity with my inferiors would assist Lord Voldemort in any way. If I want to associate with lesser beings I have my pets. Biscuit?” He offered Harry a plate of what might just be ginger biscuits.

 

"Thanks." Harry took a bite - they were, indeed, ginger. "You're quite good at this for someone who doesn't entertain often, you know."

 

“Thank you. My old acquaintance, Lady Rokujo, was most particular on how one ought to serve tea.” Voldemort took a small sip from his steaming cup. “Besides which, I abhor bad manners and it would have been graceless of me not to return your hospitality, Harry.”

 

For a moment, Harry wasn't sure what he was talking about. And then he remembered - Voldemort struggling with a chocolate wrapper in his kitchen, confusion and vulnerability written across his features - _why are you offering me this?_ Something tugged unexpectedly at Harry's heart.

 

"Well, it was my pleasure," Harry said quietly, and he gave the Dark Lord an odd little smile. "You're actually - quite pleasant to talk with, really. I wasn't expecting that."

 

And there was an answering smile on Voldemort’s thin lips, equally small, equally private. A fragile thing on that warped, flat face; reflecting the firelight like the pale surface of the moon. Alien. Untouchable. “What would you say if I suggested we move on to something alcoholic? After what we saw today I... well, I believe I might enjoy a beverage a shade or two stronger than jasmine tea.”

 

Unbidden, the image of Voldemort's dead body floated once more before Harry's vision. The auror squeezed his eyes shut until specks of white danced behind his lids; and when he opened them again, the disturbing, blank face of the corpse was replaced by this Voldemort, here in front of him, with his tea and his biscuits and the tiny smile playing at the edges of his lips.

 

"I can't argue with that," said Harry, and he set aside his tea, barely touched. "Perhaps we've gotten started on the wrong foot. We're as good as strangers, after all - until last week, we'd never actually met each other, really."

 

“Quite,” Voldemort stood in a rustle of silk and walked over to an antique cabinet on the other side of the room. As the Dark Lord opened it up, Harry could see dozens of bottles: some faceted crystal, others made of coloured glass, all of them glinting invitingly. Voldemort pulled out several promising, expensive-looking bottles. He peered at the labels for a moment and then the bony shoulders gave a shrug. “I think these shall do to begin with.” Setting down the bottles, Voldemort gestured with the Elder Wand and their cups turned into elegant wine-glasses, empty of tea. He then stuck the sharp claw of his index finger into one of the corks and pulled it out with a small pop. With a twitch of the same finger, the cork vanished. The Dark Lord poured them both a generous amount of wine so dark it seemed purple in the dim light of the fire. “What shall we toast?”  

 

"To new acquaintances," Harry declared, "and hospitality." He gave Voldemort a conspiratorial grin as he raised his glass.

 

“As my new acquaintance says, to hospitality.” And, after toasting Harry, the dark wizard didn’t swirl or sniff the no-doubt rare vintage with his reptilian nostrils - as Harry had been expecting from a snob like Voldemort - he simply tipped it back and downed the entire thing in one go. And, though it was almost imperceptible, Harry caught the slight tremble in the long fingers wrapped around the empty glass and he suddenly knew, beyond all doubt, that Voldemort had _seen_.

 

Harry looked to the fireplace and threw back his own glass, as though the wine could drown the sudden and inexplicable rush of guilt that overcame him.

 

When he turned back to Voldemort, it was with the resolve to make sure that the Dark Lord would not be left disappointed for his unexpected display of kindness tonight.

 

"I'll wager that your snakes make lousy drinking partners," Harry said, smiling softly as Voldemort topped up both their glasses.

 

“They are content in their simple way. They have no need to ameliorate their existence with intoxicants,” he was only going slightly slower on his second glass. “In truth, theirs are purer, cleaner lives. They sleep, they hunt, they kill, they eat, they sleep...” Voldemort began to eye the next bottle. “Is it not wonderful and appalling to imagine... ah,” a claw pulled out another cork, “but how foolish of me, I have no need for imagination when considering such a life...” He laughed and poured himself another draught.  

 

It took Harry a few horrified moments to realize Voldemort was talking, not about his current existence, but of the time he had spent in the forest. "Well, it all sounds very boring to me," said Harry, clumsily attempting to steer the topic away from the Dark Lord's banishment. "Nothing to do but slither around on the floor all day and eat things. And they are missing out on some _excellent_ wine."

 

“It _is_ rather good...” Voldemort sniffed his current drink, flat nostrils dilating along with his slitted pupils. “My servants gift it to me and, after I test each bottle extensively to ensure they have not tampered with the contents, I simply place them in my liquor cabinet and forget about them. I believe I have drunk more experimental potions than alcohol in the last few years. What about you, Potter?”

 

"I wish I could say the same." Stifling a sudden wave of bitterness, Harry drained the remainder of his second glass, green eyes moving restlessly to the fire again. "I'm afraid alcohol becomes a pretty necessary part of the routine when your wife throws you out of the house you bought her."

 

Voldemort leaned back in his armchair, crimson eyes blinking across at him. “I have never been married, but from what little I have observed, it seems to be a state which is hardly ever sundered cleanly.”

 

Harry reached for the bottle and helped himself to some more wine. "There was very little that was _clean_ about my marriage," he muttered as he filled the glass. "One long, bloody, twenty-year argument. Do yourself a favor and don't bother. She won't be so pretty and sweet when she's screaming at you about who gets to keep the bloody armchair in the settlement."

 

“The... _armchair_...?” Voldemort ventured uncertainly. “But, surely, such things are a trivial matter?” He gestured vaguely toward his own lounge suite with a pale hand.

 

"You would think so, wouldn't you?" Harry said, knuckles turning white around his wine glass. "Especially since when I brought it home five years ago she thought it was - I quote - the biggest bloody eyesore she had ever seen! And now," Harry gesticulated, wine nearly sloshing over the rim of his glass, "now, it's so important to her that it's worth thousands of Galleons in legal fees! No - take it from me and don't bother. It isn't worth the trouble."

 

There was a cold laugh from his drinking companion. “You merely confirm what I have always suspected. I cannot imagine settling one’s future on so fickle a foundation as another human being. Not that I _am_ one any longer, technically speaking, _homo sapiens_ being mammals rather than bipedal reptiles...” Voldemort laughed again, refilling Harry’s glass, and Harry found himself fighting down a smile, despite the anger still fresh in his breast.

 

"But surely the great Lord Voldemort has already proven this for himself? I'm sure that Bellatrix Lestrange couldn't have been the best sport when _that_ was through, eh?"

 

The livid eyes narrowed with surprise and disdain. “You presume that I have... copulated with Bella?”

 

"You mean - you haven't?" Harry's eyebrows climbed up his forehead. "Not that I blame you - she's completely off her rocker - but I just thought, from the way she looked at you - you know, how her eyes would get all bulging..." Harry twirled his hand to indicate bulging eyes as he took another swig. "It seemed obvious there was _something_ was going on."

 

“No, nothing was - as you say - _going on_.” Voldemort retorted. “Her parents were in my circle at school and had certain troubles controlling their unruly daughter. They brought her to me at an early age because they feared that she was incautious in her precocious exploration of the Dark Arts and required a proper teacher in order to save her from her own foolhardy stupidity. Being an adolescent girl, she formed a ridiculous attachment to her tutor in such forbidden studies, one I certainly did not encourage.”  

 

Harry snorted. "All right, all right - what about Crouch, then? Or Malfoy? You had no short supply of sycophants in my world - surely, one of them… ?"

 

“No!” it was said too quickly and the usually soft voice was harsh with disgust. “As if I would lower myself to partake of such sordid activities.” Harry remembered Voldemort’s anger when Harry had been amused by the idea of Tom Riddle running around naked but for a ram’s skeleton, insisting that he had only been following traditional druidic practice.

 

"You mean… you've never -?" Harry blinked at Voldemort from behind his spectacles, which glinted with the reflection of the fire. It didn't seem possible. Harry remembered quite clearly how good-looking Tom Riddle had been - tall, dark hair, handsome face. Harry had been desperately envious at the time, watching Riddle move about in the Pensieve. What Harry would have given as a teenager for such good looks! The auror shook his head in disbelief. "When I said not to bother, I didn't mean it quite like that."

 

“It is a primitive instinct, nothing more.” Voldemort declared loftily. “A coarse and degrading process of procreation.” The Dark Lord actually shuddered. “I have had no patience for such ridiculousness except that, occasionally, it serves to make otherwise sensible wizards and witches extraordinarily foolish.”

 

A slow, amused smile slipped across Harry's face. He leaned back in his chair, watching the Dark Lord with fascination. "If you're doing it properly, patience will be the last thing on your mind. Believe me."

 

“I hardly think this is a worthy topic for conversation, Harry.” Voldemort drawled, his snake-like nostrils flaring in irritation. “What I may or may not have done with my body is surely of little concern to you.”

 

"We could go back to discussing the mating habits of your snakes, if that would make you more comfortable," said Harry, fighting down his smirk.

 

Voldemort set down his wine glass. “I have never made any secret of my choice to abstain from such so-called pleasures,” he said quietly, the serpentine hiss clearly audible in his soft voice. “I am not ashamed of such decisions, far from it, and I am at a loss as to why you find my situation so fascinating.”

 

Harry stared at him, face full of disbelief, as though at any moment, he expected Voldemort to reveal that he'd been joking this entire time. "It's just - a little outrageous to me, I suppose, that Lord Voldemort is willing to experiment with every sort of dangerous, unspeakable magic - but he gets all flustered at the thought of a roll in the hay."

 

“I am _not_ flustered,” the Dark Lord snapped coldly, a shrill note beginning to creep into his high voice. He stood, looming over Harry. “You dare compare _magic_ ,” spidery hands the colour of milk stoked the room with flames of power that rippled from those skeletal fingers, as they caressed the air, “that supreme gift by which we wizards reorder the universe, with... with...” the elegant digits gestured helplessly.  

 

"It's remarkably similar, actually." Slow with wine and the heavy warmth of Voldemort's rooms, Harry followed the Dark Lord to his feet. He found the wild, crimson gaze past emerald and golden flames and held it still with his own. "They're both about manipulation, you know - about finding boundaries and surpassing them. And that high you experience when you've held untamed power in your hands, and twisted it? When you've pinned it down inside of you and broken it to your will?" Harry was not sure when he'd gotten so close; he felt drawn to the wizard in front of him, a moth to a flame. "Well, touching another person - a _magical_ person - is even better."

 

The wide, livid, eyes stared at him fixedly - with dawning comprehension in their glittering depths; comprehending something Harry himself was only just realising as that strange, pale - _how many glasses had he drunk?_ \- creature took a step back. “You are inebriated,” Voldemort told him matter-of-factly, all emotion flickering out of sight behind a mask of chilly reserve.

 

"And _you're_ in denial." He shifted on his feet, trying to shake off the disconcerting sensation that had held him captive just a moment ago. He felt dizzy, his cheeks warm with colour - but he was beginning to think it wasn't from the alcohol.

 

“And what is it that I am denying?”

 

Harry might have let him alone, but it was the unspoken dare in that question which made him, feeling cocky from the wine, saunter forward until Voldemort was right in front of him. Refusing to be cowed by the Dark Lord's glare, Harry tilted his chin up and leaned slowly, slowly forward on the balls of his feet - until there was barely an inch of space between their mouths. The heady taste of wine was thick on Voldemort's breath. The air positively thrummed with tension between them.

 

"You're denying," Harry murmured, "that you don't feel it, too. Like gathering magic between your palms, in the split second before its release." His mouth curled into a challenging smile. "And I'm not even touching you."

 

The crimson eyes fluttered closed and Voldemort’s dark aura resonated like a struck tuning fork. “Do _not_ ...” but the command faltered and Harry could feel those cold, halting breaths like ice against his flushed skin. The sharp talons hardly knew what to do, hanging tense at Voldemort’s sides. The white eyelids shut tighter. Voldemort took another step back and then red, red gaze was open and raw like a wound, full of smarting pride, incomprehension and - beneath it all - the livid smoke of arousal. “ _You, you mock me!_ You surely do not intend to - ? _What_ ... what _purpose_ can this possibly serve...?”

 

This gave Harry pause. What _was_ he trying to do? He studied the pale, inhuman face of Lord Voldemort, made suddenly mortal by the play of vulnerability across his expression - and _Harry had done that!_ Harry had put that there. And Voldemort, who claimed he had never yielded permission to any of his cherished followers to engage him in such _sordid activities_ … Voldemort was looking at Harry like - well, like he might be something worth looking at.

 

And then there was the way Voldemort's hand had trembled as he downed the glass of wine, the way Voldemort's body had curled in on itself as he stood shaking and alone in the wake of his own fury.

 

Yes - Voldemort had deserved to die in Harry's world, and Harry would do it again without hesitation. But this was not the same wizard Harry had killed twenty years ago. This Voldemort lived alone, with no other company but his snakes, and he laughed at Harry's attempts at humor and drank tea and cared about things like manners and hospitality.

 

Perhaps it was just the wine or the heavy heat, muddling up his good judgment - or perhaps it was just Voldemort, standing in front of him and trembling and struggling to breathe because of _Harry._ But Harry found, quite simply, that he wanted - and that he could not, in that moment, think of a good reason _not_ to.

 

"You're still looking at it from all the wrong angles," Harry said with a small smile, and he followed Voldemort step for step, until the Dark Lord had nearly backed himself up against the fireplace. "It doesn't need to have a purpose. You've just got to want to." He felt very warm as he searched Voldemort's face. "Do you - want to?"

 

Very slowly, as Harry felt the heat of the fire and listened to Riddle’s slow breaths, the dark wizard leaned down to place his chin cautiously on Harry’s shoulder. No part of their bodies touched except that bony jaw resting against him and the cold of that soft, colourless skin brushing against his cheek. It took a moment to realise that Voldemort’s shoulders were shaking.  

 

The Dark Lord smelled like something alien and bright, a scent more suited to a moon rock than a wizard. Harry filled his lungs with it, and he turned his head so that the tip of his nose dragged slowly up Voldemort's throat. "I want to," Harry confessed in a murmur, lips grazing against the fleshy shell of an ear.

 

Voldemort shivered at the touch, instinctively flinching at the touch of Harry’s mouth but unable to pull away. “I am immortal,” he whispered, trembling, trailing his flat profile across Harry’s forehead and down Harry’s boiling cheek. “I shall live forever. Yet I feel as dead as that... _that_...”

 

"That's not you," Harry cut in, almost as much for himself as for Voldemort. "You're with me, here - alive. See," and Harry pulled the Dark Lord's wrist forward, turning it so that the soft, veined underside was exposed; closing his eyes, he brought it up to his mouth and felt the pulse thunder beneath his lips. "I can feel your heart beating."

 

There was a hollow noise, like the strained, miserable cry of a wounded animal; that high, beautiful tenor broken into pain for which there were no words as Voldemort sank down in a pool of dark silk on the hearth rug, his curved, milk-white claws ripping Harry’s uniform as they dragged down his front.

 

"Hey -" said Harry, shocked and confused, and he dropped down beside him as he had so often knelt on the floor to comfort his children. In much the same way now, Harry gathered this fragile, unhappy creature in his arms, holding Voldemort together against him and taking care not to get in the way of the Dark Lord's sharp talons again. "Hey, there now…" he murmured against the pale, hairless head, stroking Voldemort's bony back, "you're here, you're alive - you're even ruling wizarding Britain! Everything's all right. It's okay."

 

The hoarse voice whispered something in Parseltongue, the same soft hisses over and over, but Harry could no longer understand. The soft sibilance of the snake language called to Harry as the Dark Lord repeated that same frustratingly unknowable phrase, the rough, forked tongue lingering in his ear. Skinny arms wrapped around his waist as Voldemort pushed him backward until he lay atop him; just lying there, his jutting, quivering ribs against Harry’s stomach, still whispering as though incanting some great ritual.

 

It was on the tip of his tongue - _I cannot understand you_ \- but Harry swallowed the confession. Voldemort would not react well to another reminder of his death. Several snakes stirred in the corners of the room in response to sound of their mother tongue, and Harry was briefly envious of Voldemort's ability to slip so easily into their minds - perhaps then Harry would know what the Dark Lord was trying to tell him. But he remained silent and unknowing, holding the tall, thin wizard close to him as Voldemort clung to his body.

 

Eventually, a pale talon reached around and gently pulled one of Harry’s hands from Voldemort’s back as he rolled off Harry so that they lay beside each other on the fine, darkly-woven rug. Close up, the long, bone-white digits looked like something from the Muggle natural history museum he had taken James to last year. And was that not what Voldemort was - something strange, unique, and deadly - now extinct in his world?

 

Then the skeletal fingers were lifting his own hand to Voldemort’s lipless mouth. The kiss was courtly rather than sensual; a polite whisper of flesh as Voldemort repeated that same unknown phrase in Parseltongue. A little brown snake, curious, nudged Harry’s leg with its nose.

 

"I - don't know what you're saying..." Harry whispered before he could stop himself. He turned his hand to touch the Dark Lord's cheek experimentally, moving his fingers against cool, silken skin. "I've forgotten…"

 

The crimson eyes narrowed as Voldemort stared at him and Harry remembered that Voldemort had never known what had been burned in his own memory: that a sliver of the Dark Lord’s soul had onced lived inside him; that awful, flayed thing that had given him Tom Riddle’s gift... _there is no help possible._

 

“I _said,”_ Voldemort’s voice was so very soft beside him, as it had been in another firelit moment, almost part of the crackle and hiss of the flames, _“I want to.”_

 

Harry knew he was staring, but he could not look away. His stomach felt uneasy, on the hot and slippery edge of nausea; he opened his mouth to say something, but no sound came out.

 

His eyes found Voldemort's lips - _I want to_ \- and Harry's face was hot and his heart was reeling and stumbling in his chest, like it was drunk on something other than the wine on Voldemort's breath -

 

Harry leaned forward and kissed him.

 

It was a terrible kiss. It was only when kissing another person that Harry realised just how much he’d gotten used to Ginny’s excellent technique. Voldemort’s over-eager lips were hardly there, his mouth was too wide, and Harry fetched up, almost immediately, against sharp, yellowing teeth that tore open his lower lip.

 

Harry yelped and jerked away, tasting blood in his mouth. "Oh, god, I'm sorry," he stammered, feeling mortally embarrassed as he scrambled into a sitting position, "I - god, sorry, I -"

 

He poked his tongue into the metallic wound, finding an unfamiliar tang of something else there as well. And that wasn't the only thing wrong. The room was beginning to slip sideways _,_ his hearing going strange and dull, as though perceiving everything through a thick and heavy cloth.

 

Distantly, Harry recalled the training he'd received in poisons and natural toxins while studying to become an auror - their final test had been to prepare an antidote while under the influence of snake venom - but that didn't make any sense, did it? They had been drinking and eating for the better part of an hour - why would he only just be feeling the effects of a poison now? "I - I feel quite strange."

 

His lip was beginning to swell up. “Ah...” Voldemort almost looked embarrassed. “I assure you, Harry, that was a dry bite. However, you may have become inadvertently envenomed by some - ah - residual toxins. Please calm yourself, as excessive panic will only cause your blood to circulate the ill effects faster and thus hasten your demise - which, again, I assure you was not my intention. Sit here and breathe deeply, and I shall fetch the antivenin.”

 

"You - you _poisoned_ me -?!" The stone walls seemed to be closing in on him from all sides, and the floor wouldn't stop moving. Harry's mouth was starting to throb, sharp, bright pain that cut through the fog enveloping him. His stomach gave a jerk with a much less pleasant sort of nausea; Harry brought a hand up to his mouth, feeling close to sicking up.

 

He recognized the symptoms wreaking havoc on his nervous system. This was some of the fastest acting venom he had ever encountered in his years as an auror. Best case scenario, Harry had perhaps ten minutes before he was unconscious - and he was entirely at the mercy of a wizard who, in an alternate universe, had cut off his head and shoved it on a pike.

 

Don't panic. _Right._

 

“In actual fact,” Voldemort continued, a black and white blur on the edge of Harry’s vision, “you had better lie down in order to slow the rate of absorption, as I do not appear to have any of the appropriate anti-toxins on hand.” There was a panicked hiss, a flash of magic, and an anguished bleating noise. “Filthy creature.” Something screamed and Harry thought he could discern the thickly metallic smell of blood.  

 

Harry's hands shook as he tried to lie back; he knocked his head on the side of the armchair and groaned. Eyes squeezing shut, he opened his mouth to ask Voldemort, whatever the hell he was doing, to _please_ move it along; and then cool, bony fingers gripped his clammy jaw and yanked it open.

 

And shoved in a mouthful of something wet and warm and saturated with blood.

 

Harry choked, eyes flying open - "Mmmpfff-!" but the fingers pressed it further into his mouth, hot, rusty blood squirting down his throat as a result. His stomach flipped over, and then vomit was rushing up his esophagus - but Voldemort's hand pushed down against his mouth, shutting it, and Harry gave an agonized moan. He struggled weakly, his mouth full of thick blood and bile and the heavy, squishy thing on his tongue that felt sickeningly like an organ. His throat convulsed, and he found he was unable to convince himself to swallow.

 

And suddenly Harry felt impossibly light-headed, as though he were floating, dreaming, and all pain and panic miraculously lifted from him. But a terrible voice was echoing in some distant chamber of his mind: _Swallow, Harry..._ called that ghoulish high-pitched hiss that had wanted him to bow, to scrape, to _say no..._

 

No. I won’t.

 

_Just swallow... just swallow..._

 

“I WON - _ARGUUUUHHH!”_ Harry opened his mouth to scream out a denial - that he _wouldn’t!_ \- and the muscles in his throat relaxed for a mere second and Voldemort forced the horrible thing down.

 

The curse lifted, and Harry spilled forward onto his hands and knees, choking and spluttering. He shook his head furiously like a wet dog, glasses slipping off his nose, his body filled with tension as it attempted to reject Voldemort's antidote. The bezoar hit his stomach like a rock, and Harry's head spun with nausea; he shoved his fist against his mouth to keep from retching.

 

Slowly - gradually - the spinning of the room receded. The high-pitched ringing in his ears diminished to a dull roar, and bit by bit, Harry became aware of little things around him - the soft texture of the carpet, the immaculate stone floor beyond, and Voldemort's bare, taloned feet shifting against the rug. Harry squeezed shut his eyes so tightly he saw spots.

 

"Right," he rasped out at last, massaging his throat. "No more biting, if we can help it."

 

“My sincere apologies for your discomfort,” Voldemort leaned down, talons dripping with goat blood, offering to help Harry to his feet. “I am... unused to such things.”

 

"Not a problem," Harry said hoarsely, and rose with unsteadiness to his feet. He tried not to think about the blood all over Voldemort's hand as the Dark Lord helped him stand - but then he saw the goat lying by the fireplace, it's abdomen torn messily open as though by a werewolf, ropes of intestines trailing across the carpet. Harry felt his stomach give another distressing lurch.

 

"Where'd you find a goat?" He tried to sound casual, but his voice was weak and a little hysterical to his own ears as he sat - collapsed - into an armchair.

 

Voldemort was fiddling with the alcohol cabinet again, pouring both of them a glass of green liquid that smelled, inexplicably, of honey and blueberries. The Dark Lord clearly thought it was time to move on to the hard stuff. The clawed feet stepped carefully over the corpse of the goat. “Unfortunately, being pressed for time, I had to transfigure one of my snakes, a young Pseudechis australis. A pity,” Voldemort passed Harry a glass, “but there was no time to create a proper antivenin and there was no guarantee that those in my possession would be effective against my own venom. I... do not make a habit of biting people, I assure you. There are far cleaner ways to kill a wizard than by using one’s teeth.” Awkward silence descended and Voldemort sipped his drink, not meeting Harry’s eyes.

 

Harry wiped his mouth - there was still a bit of bezoar juice smeared across his chin - and took a long sip of the drink Voldemort had given him. He swished the burning liquid around his mouth, washing out the lingering taste of goat intestines.

 

Voldemort was still looking fixedly away, his face studiously blank. It suddenly occurred to Harry that - inconceivable as it may be - the Dark Lord was embarrassed. And wouldn't Harry be embarrassed, too? He swallowed his mouthful of liquor. "Er, well - biting isn't - always a bad thing," Harry said, trying to sound reassuring. "But perhaps considering the whole - venom business, you ought to take it easy with the teeth next time."

 

Voldemort looked up, livid eyes wide. “ _You_ \- that is to say - you wish for there to be a _next time?”_

 

"Well, er…" Harry coughed, rubbing his throat, "We didn't exactly get very -"

 

But before he could finish the thought, the room was swallowed in blinding white light; the chair vanished from beneath him; he was falling, falling, spinning out of control -

 

And Harry was remade in the dark and empty Ministry atrium, his gasps echoing against the high ceiling, sucking in the air of a world where Lord Voldemort was twenty years dead and completely out of reach.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay - it's been very difficult for us to find the time to work together, for a variety of serious, real life reasons. There is also the next chapter of 'Yew and Holly' in the works, which just needs a final edit. Thank you for your patience, everyone. <3

**Author's Note:**

> _"I did my waiting – 12 years of it!" Well it hasn't been quite that long, but it certainly feels that way! We are back and collaborating on some new (and old) projects about our two favorite wizards. Hope you enjoy._


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